How to Make a Simple Radar Using Ultrasonic Sensors

In this article I will make a simple radar using Arduino Nano. The purpose of this radar is, when there is an approaching item, the LED will light. and when there is no object approaching, the LED will off.

I use an ultrasonic sensor to detect approaching items. and for the display I used RGB ring WS2812.

I suggest reading the 2 articles below first before continuing reading this article.

• How to Use NeoPixel / WS2812 16-bit Ring Using Arduino Nano
• How to Use Ultrasonc Sensor Using Arduino

This is a list of components prepared to make this simple radar:

• HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor
• 16 Bit WS2812 RGB LED.
• Arduino Nano V3
• Jumper Wire
• project board

Library required:

• Adafruit NeoPixel

follow the instructions below to assemble all the components:

Arduino to Ultrasonic Sensor

+5V => VCC

D11 => Trig

D12 => Echo

GND => GND

Arduino to Neo Pixels

D6 => IN

+5V => VCC

GND => GND

Enter the sketch below into the sketch that you made. then click upload

#include 
#ifdef __AVR__
 #include 
#endif
#define PIN        6
#define NUMPIXELS 16
Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels(NUMPIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
const int trigPin = 12;
const int echoPin = 11;
long duration;
int distance;
void setup() {
  
#if defined(__AVR_ATtiny85__) && (F_CPU == 16000000)
  clock_prescale_set(clock_div_1);
#endif
pixels.begin();
pixels.setBrightness(10);
pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT); // Sets the trigPin as an Output
pinMode(echoPin, INPUT); // Sets the echoPin as an Input
Serial.begin(9600); // Starts the serial communication
}
  
void ultra (){
  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(2);
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(10);
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
distance= duration*0.034/2;
Serial.print("Distance: ");
Serial.println(distance);
}
void loop() {
ultra();
if(distance < 8){
   for(int i=0; i 8)
{  
   for(int i=0; i

the results can be seen in the video above

When an object approaches. The red LED will turn on.

thank you for reading this article, if you have questions just write it in the comments column.