AndroidSerial for Processing

This is a Processing-for-Android library offering the serial communication.

This library works on Android 5.0 or later since it uses Android USB Host API.

This library also includes usb-serial-for-android containing FTDI serial driver and USB CDC/ACM serial driver working on Android. Since the project creates only AAR file by default, there is a shell script, update_libs.sh, to extract a jar file from the built AAR file. Use the script when you require the other revision of the project binary.

Note that this version is alpha release.

How to use

Build the source code (see below) or download a binary from the release page.

Unzip AndroidSerial-distribution.zip and copy all files including AndroidSerial directory to your libraries folder (e.g. ~/Documents/Processing/libraries).

If you already install the older version of AndroidSerial library, remove it prior to copying the new one.

The usage of the library is almost same as processing.serial.Serial library.

The difference between processing.serial.Serial and this is a static method list().

The following code does NOT work on the AndroidSerial library.

println(Serial.list()); // processing.serial library

But this does work,

println(Serial.list(this));

Other methods in processing.serial.Serial class should work without any changes.

Example

You can get a working example from the sparkfun's pulse sensor SEN-11574.

1. Install Android SDK Platform 23 or higher as well as Android SDK Tools and Android SDK Platform-tools or later (I tried Android SDK Platform 23/24, SDK Platform Tools 24.0.3, SDK Tools 25.2.2, and Processing 3.2.1)

2. Install Android mode on your Processing environment

3. Install this library (Unzip AndroidSerial-distribution.zip and copy all files including AndroidSerial directory to your libraries folder (e.g. ~/Documents/Processing/libraries))

4. Go to the page

5. Download the Processing sketch from Documents section

6. Open the downloaded Processing sketch (not Arduino)

7. On the Processing IDE, choose Sketch -> Import Library -> Android Serial Library for Processing (This will insert import io.inventit.processing.android.serial.*;)

8. Modify the code as below (see here for the source code available at the sparkfun site)

   L9: // import processing.serial.*; // comment out
   L57: println(Serial.list());    // print a list of available serial ports
                | (add `this`)
                v
   L57: println(Serial.list(this));    // print a list of available serial ports
   
   L61: port = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 115200);  // make sure Arduino is talking serial at this baud rate
                | (add `this`)
                v
   L61: port = new Serial(this, Serial.list(this)[0], 115200);  // make sure Arduino is talking serial at this baud rate
   

9. Please make sure that you need to check and modify the index of Serial.list(this) at the line 62 in order to specify the valid port name

10. Create res/xml directories under the opened sketch directory (e.g. ~/Documents/Processing/PulseSensorAmpd_Processing_1dot1)

11. Copy examples/PulseSensor11574/res/xml/device_fileter.xml to the created directory (e.g. ~/Documents/Processing/PulseSensorAmpd_Processing_1dot1/res/xml)

12. Copy examples/PulseSensor11574/AndroidManifest.xml to the opened sketch directory (e.g. ~/Documents/Processing/PulseSensorAmpd_Processing_1dot1)

13. Connect your Android device to your computer and Run the code

14. The application may report Unexpected error on your Android screen but you can ignore it (tap OK)

15. Disconnect the Android device from the computer and connect your FTDI device or Arduino to the Android device with USB cable

16. Android asks you to choose an application to launch, then choose your application (e.g. PulseSensorAmpd_Processing_1dot1)

17. Finally, you will see the same screen as your computer!

** Screenshot on Galaxy J **

How to build

You can build the project source code though you can download the built binary from our SourceForge project page.

Prior to building the project, you need to install the following software:

1. JDK 6+ (Any JDK will be available)
2. Apache Maven (Choose the latest one if possible)
3. Gradle is required if you run update_libs.sh, which downloads and builds the other revision of usb-serial-for-android source code than b96f9ca

Then run the following command under the root of the project:

mvn clean deploy

And you can find the artifact file named AndroidSerial-distribution.zip at target directory.

Directory Structure

The directory structure of this application is as follows:

|-- images
|-- libs
|   |-- processing
|   |   `-- android-core
|   |       `-- android-mode-0252
|   `-- com
|       `-- hoho
|           `-- usb-serial-for-android
|               `-- b96f9ca
|-- src
|   |-- main
|   |   |-- assembly
|   |   |-- examples
|   |   |   `-- PulseSensor11574 (X)
|   |   |   |   `-- res
|   |   |   |      `-- xml
|   |   |-- java
|   |   `-- resources
|   `-- test
|       |-- java
|       `-- resources

(X) is a working example for Sparkfun's Pulse Sensor SEN-11574

Source Code License

All program source codes are available under the MIT style License.

Copyright (c) 2016 Inventit Inc.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Dependencies

• usb-serial-for-android ... LGPL, USB serial driver for Android
• Processing Core ... LGPL, Processing core library
• Android ... ASL 2.0, Android API Library
• SLFJ Android ... MIT, Logging framework
• Robolectric ... Android testing library (TEST USE ONLY)
• Mockito ... Mock testing library (TEST USE ONLY)

Change History

0.2.0 : September 23, 2016

• Rename package to io.inventit.processing.android.serial
• Processing 3.2 support
• Use the latest version of usb-serial-for-android
• Android Mode 0252 support

0.1.0-alpha : February 29, 2016

• Processing 3 support and Processing 2 is no longer supported

0.0.2-alpha : June 20, 2013

• Fixes an issue where Arduino Due cannot be detected by usb-serial-for-android library. Now all Arduino devices are accepted (but not sure they all work properly. Give us your feedback)
• Adds unit testing libraries, Robolectric and Mockito
• The release binary has been moved to our SourceForge project page

0.0.1-alpha : June 10, 2013

• Initial