Transforming IoT Prototyping: How to Easily Send Ultrasonic Sensor Data to ThingSpeak Cloud Using ESP8266 on Proteus Simulation

7 min readMar 10, 2023

This article provides a step-by-step guide to connecting ultrasonic sensors to the ThingSpeak cloud in a Proteus simulation. It includes instructions on how to set up the simulation, interface the ultrasonic sensor with a microcontroller, and transmit the sensor data to the cloud.

Proteus:

The Proteus Design Suite is software used mainly for electronic design automation. Through Proteus, we can draw schematics, visual designs, and PCB layouts and can simulate the schematics with code or flowcharts. It is developed by Labcenter Electronics Ltd.

MQTT:

MQTT stands for Message Query Telemetry Transport. It is a messaging protocol designed for devices with low bandwidth, high latency, or unreliable networks. These qualities make it an ideal protocol for Machine to Machine communication (IoT devices).

In this project, Thingspeak’s MQTT broker is used ( mqtt3.thingspeak.com). It supports both publish and subscribe services. Publish sends a message from the device to the broker (ultrasonic sensor data to ThingSpeak’s channel graphs). Subscribe is used to get updates from the broker.

Components:

The components used in this simulation include Arduino Uno, Esp8266–12E, and Grove Ultrasonic Ranger Module.

Arduino UNO: It is an open-source microcontroller board. It can be integrated into a variety of electronics projects. Arduino is mainly used for interfacing sensors.

Esp8266–12E: It is a low-power consumption Wi-Fi module. It is used to connect devices with wireless Wi-Fi networks, and other network capabilities. Mainly, it uses for IoT applications and mobile devices.

Grove Ultrasonic Ranger Module: It is an ultrasonic transducer using ultrasonic waves to measure distance.

Project Setup

In this tutorial, the step-by-step process of ultrasonic simulation has been explained.

Step 1

The first step is to open the Proteus 8 Professional and click on New Project.

Step 2

New Project Wizard will pop up on the screen. Enter the Project Name and specify the path.

Step 3

Create the schematic from the given template of your choice.

Step 4

There is no need for PCB Layout in this project. So click on Do not create a PCB Layout and then Next.

Step 5

Select Create Flowchart Project and Select ARDUINO Family.

Step 6

By clicking on Finish, the project will be created.

Step 7

On the schematic Sheet, Arduino UNO will be placed with all necessary connections.

Step 8

Visual Designer Sheet will have a flowchart with Arduino Setup and Loop Blocks.

Step 9

To enable Wi-Fi, the ESP8266 module is needed. To add the ESP8266, Right-click on Peripherals > Add Peripheral.

Step 10

Navigate to the category Internet of Things.

Step 11

Select the VFP server ESP8266 and click Add to insert it into the project.

Step 12

On the schematic Sheet, ESP8266 will be placed with all necessary connections.

Step 13

In the Peripherals project tree, Right-click on ESP1: MQTT (MQTT) > Enable Peripheral.

Step 14

Double-click on ESP1: MQTT (MQTT) to get the Properties of ESP1: MQTT.

Step 15

To get these credentials, first, create a channel in ThingSpeak. Login or Create an account in MathWorks.

Step 16

Click on New Channel.

Step 17

Fill in the necessary blocks including Project Name and Column Names. As this project is about ultrasonic simulation, the project name is Ultrasonic Simulation and it has only one attribute Distance, so the field name is the distance where distance measures (values) will be stored.

Step 18

Scroll down and Click on Save changes.

Step 19

To see your channel, Click on Channels > My channels > Ultrasonic Simulation.

Step 20

The Channel ID will be given below the Project Name.

Step 21

Scroll down the page and see the graph where distance will be visualized during the simulation.

Step 22

Now to get the credentials of MQTT, create the MQTT Device. Click on Devices > MQTT.

Step 23

Click on Add a new device.

Step 24

The dialogue box will pop up, enter the name of the MQTT device and select a previously created channel.

Step 25

Click on Add Channel > Add Device.

Step 26

The dialogue box will pop up where the credentials of MQTT will be given. Click on Download Credentials.

Step 27

The MQTT credential file will be downloaded that contains the username, clientId, and password.

Step 28

Enter the above details in the properties of ESP1: MQTT (Proteus). Here the server will be mqtt3.thingspeak.com.

Step 29

Now to add the ultrasonic module, click on Peripherals > Add Peripheral.

Step 30

Navigate to the category Grove. Select Grove Ultrasonic Ranger Module > Add.

Step 31

On the schematic Sheet, Grove Ultrasonic Ranger Module will be placed with all necessary connections.

Step 32

After adding all necessary components and MQTT Configuration, design the flowchart. Drag Connect from the ESP1 project tree to the LOOP routine block.

Step 33

To read the data from Ultrasonic Module, drag readCentimeters from UR1 (Grove Ultrasonic Ranger) to the Loop Block and place it after the connect block.

Step 34

To publish the distance values from the ultrasonic sensor to ThingSpeak, drag publish from the project tree to Loop.

Step 35

The basic syntax of Topic is “channels/<channel ID>/ publish/fields/field<number>”. Enter the topic with a channel ID and field number of ThingSpeak. Enter True in the Retained block and then specify the Message (cm is a variable in which the distance from the ultrasonic module is stored).