The Extended Kalman Filter

This is the third part of the series dedicated to one of the most popular sensor de-noising technique: Kalman filters. This article will explain how to model non-linear processes to improve the filter performance, something known as the Extended Kalman Filter.

You can read all the tutorials in this online course here:

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Modelling Kalman Filters

This is the third part of the series dedicated to one of the most popular sensor de-noising technique: Kalman filters. This article will explain how to model processes to improve the filter performance.

You can read all the tutorials in this online course here:

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The Mathematics of the Kalman Filter

This is the second part of the series dedicated to one of the most popular sensor de-noising technique: Kalman filters. This article will introduce the Mathematics of the Kalman Filter, with a special attention to a quantity that makes it all possible: the Kalman gain.

You can read all the articles in this online course here:

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Kalman Filters: From Theory to Implementation

This series of articles will introduce the Kalman filter, a powerful technique that is used to reduce the impact of noise in sensors. If you are working with Arduino, this tutorial will teach you how to reliably read data from your sensors. This is a tutorial that will be very helpful even if you are not working with hardware: game developers are often challenged by noise, especially when it comes to integrating data collected from gyroscopes and accelerometers. And even if you are not building a mobile game, you can use Kalman filters to increase the precision of your controllers.

This first post will focus on a brief introduction to the problem, while the other tutorials in this online will focus on the derivation and implementation of a Kalman filter.

You can read all the tutorials in this online course here:

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Asynchronous Serial Communication

In a previous post, How To Integrate Arduino With Unity, we have shown how data can be sent and received through the serial port. The main problem encountered was dealing with the latency and the delays that communicating across different devices introduces. The solution proposed in that tutorial used a coroutine; decoupling the device communication from the game logic attenuates the problem, but it doesn’t remove it. The main problem is that, despite the name, Unity coroutines are not really executed in parallel with the rest of the game. Unity, by design, is not thread safe. This means that true parallelism is intentionally avoided by the engine, as it could result in race conditions. To solve the problem of the communication between Unity and Arduino, once and for all, we need actual threads.

At the end of this tutorial, you can find a link to download the Unity package.

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How To Destroy an Arduino Board

Developers that are approaching electronics for the very first time have a lesson to learn; and this usually happens the hard way. Wiring a circuit incorrectly, and you can potentially destroy your Arduino board. When it comes to mistakes, hardware is generally not as forgiving as software. This tutorial shows the most common ways you can accidentally destroy an Arduino board; and how to avoid it.

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How to Build a Heater with Arduino – Part 2

This is the second part of a tutorial that will teach you how to build a portable heating device with Arduino. In this post, we will explore how to control a heating resistor with Arduino. This allows to keep your setup at the desired temperature.

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How to Build a Heater with Arduino – Part 1

This tutorial will explain how to build a portable heating device with Arduino. If you’re an amateur astronomer, this can be the perfect way to prevent the formation of dew on your mirrors and lenses. In my specific case, I’ve built one of those mini heaters to warm up a formicarium. Whether it’s for your feet or for your cold-blooded pets, building a heater is easy and cheap.

The second part of this tutorial (How to Build a Heater with Arduino – Part 2) will explain how to use a temperature sensor to maintain a desired temperature. Continue reading

How to integrate Arduino with Unity

In this tutorial you will learn how Unity and Arduino can communicate using the serial port. This tutorial requires both C# and Arduino scripts; the labels  Unity  and  Arduino  will be used to avoid confusion.

The topic of connecting Arduino to Unity is further expanded in Asynchronous Serial Communication, where you can also download the entire Unity package.

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