Read Data from I2C Sensors

This workflow shows how to read data from I2C-based third-party sensors using the LEGO^® MINDSTORMS^® EV3 hardware.

Introduction
Prerequisites
Required Hardware
Hardware Setup
Simulink Model for HiTechnic Color Sensor
Configure I2C Register Read Block Parameters for HiTechnic Color Sensor
Run Model
Related Links

Introduction

In the master read operation in the I2C serial data communication protocol, the master device requests data from the I2C slave device or slave device registers using a unique 8-bit address. Both, the master and the slave device must be connected over the same I2C network to establish a successful communication. In this workflow, the EV3 brick acts as the master device, and any one of the I2C-based third-party sensors connected over the I2C network act as the slave device.

Prerequisites

Install the Simulink^® Support Package for LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Hardware.
Complete the Getting Started with LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Hardware and Communicating with LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Hardware examples.

Required Hardware

LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 brick
I2C slave device
EV3 brick connector

Hardware Setup

Connect the slave device to the input port of the EV3 brick.

You can connect any I2C-based sensor as a slave to the EV3 brick. Determine the following parameters in the sensor datasheet to correctly configure the I2C Register Read block parameters:

I2C slave address
I2C slave register address that holds the input data
Data type
Data size
Endianness of the I2C data transfer
Number of bytes

Simulink Model for HiTechnic Color Sensor

This example uses a preconfigured model from the Simulink Support Package for LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Hardware. In this model, the EV3 brick acts as the master and the HiTechnic color sensor acts as the slave. The EV3 brick reads the R-G-B data from the color sensor. You can use this data to drive an algorithm on the Arduino hardware depending on the type of application.

To open the model, run this command in the MATLAB^® Command prompt.

open_system('ev3_i2cread_hitechnic_colorsensor')

Configure I2C Register Read Block Parameters for HiTechnic Color Sensor

This table describes the parameters configured on the I2C Register Read block using the HiTechnic color sensor datasheet. With these set parameters, the EV3 brick would read data from three registers (corresponding to R-G-B values) starting from the configured slave register address.

Parameter Name	Parameter Description	Preconfigured Parameter Values
EV3 brick input port number	EV3 brick input port connected to the color sensor	1
Slave address	Color sensor address on which the EV3 hardware performs the read operation	1
Slave register address	Color sensor register address on which the EV3 hardware performs the read operation	1
Data type	Data type of the color sensor	uint8
Data size (N)	Data size to be read by the EV3 hardware	3
Output error status	Status of the read operation	Clear
Sample time	EV3 hardware read operation sampling time on the color sensor	0.1 seconds

Run Model

On the Hardware tab of the Simulink model, click Monitor & Tune to run the model on the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Hardware.