I built this Arduino radar project, where I control the brightness of an LED with my breath. In this tutorial, I will show you exactly how to do it.
It was an experiment to get the XeThru radar to work with Arduino. I plan to expand on this later, and build more useful applications.
And I will share with you how to connect the hardware, and how to create the Arduino code.
Just to be clear: This is not a sonar pretending to be a radar. This is a radar. With electromagnetic waves.
The Hardware
XeThru is a radar module from Novelda. You can use it to detect movement in a room, and even measure the breath of a person, without contact.
Since it’s using electromagnetic waves, you could build it into your wall or some other object, to create an invisible intruder alarm sensor.
For example:
You could build it into an alarm clock, and place it on your night stand. Without anything connected to your body or your bed.
Then it would monitor your breathing pattern, and your movements throughout the night. This information can help you understand the quality of your sleep. Are you getting the sleep cycles you need?
Or, you could build it into a handheld device for the police. They can place it on a door to see if there is anyone in the room before entering.
There are other radars available, like these:
http://reactancelabs.com/?p=293
http://hackaday.com/2014/06/14/the-first-arduino-radar-shield/
But they’re quite big, because of their antennas.
The XeThru module fits in my hand:
For More Details: Arduino Radar Tutorial: Fading an LED With My Breath
