Embedded Lab

How many times you have trouble remembering if you have closed the garage door while you are away? Or, how many times you have discovered in the morning that your garage door was open all night? Well, if you are having this issue, you might consider building Adam Oakley’s automated garage door closer that shuts the door for you automatically when you forget.

Powered by an Arduino Pro Micro board, it uses a ceiling-mounted HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor to sense the status of the garage door. When the door is open, it slides up close to the ceiling, and thereby the HC-SR04 sensor can detect a reflected echo from a shorter distance. The Arduino reads the sensor output every second and when it detects the garage door is open, a count down timer of preset interval begins. If the door remains open after the timer runs out, a signal is sent out to close the garage door. The project uses a 10-segment LED bar to display the time left before the timer runs out (or before the door will be closed automatically). What if you are working in the garage and you need it to be opened for a little longer. Adam also included a push button that resets the timer every time it is pushed. His software is modular and is designed to work with single or multiple doors with minimal modifications.ent on my LED strip is worth 10 minutes. If less than 10 minutes remain, the segment will dim accordingly.