Lab Activity 8 Interrupts

CPET11L-M - Microprocessor and Microcontroller Systems, Lab
Experiment Number 8
Interrupts
Objectives:
To learn how to use the external interrupts of the Arduino board.
Theory:
The processor at the heart of any Arduino has two different kinds of interrupts:
“external”, and “pin change”. There are only two external interrupt pins on the
ATmega168/328 (ie, in the Arduino Uno/Nano/Duemilanove), INT0 and INT1, and
they are mapped to Arduino pins 2 and 3. These interrupts can be set to trigger
on RISING or FALLING signal edges, or on low level. The triggers are interpreted by
hardware, and the interrupt is very fast. The Arduino Mega has a few more
external interrupt pins available. The advantage of hardware interrupts is the CPU
doesn't waste most of its time "polling" or constantly checking the status of an IO
pin.
There are four available functions for controlling interrupts with Arduino:
attachInterrupt(), detachInterrupt(), interrupts(), and noInterrupts(). We shall
explore all four functions.
The label "LED" to the compiler is defined as the number 9. So digitalWrite(LED, HIGH)
is the same as digitalWrite(9, HIGH) which is the same as digitalWrite(LED, 1), etc.
The second line defines the variable "state" as both a byte (8-
bit variable) and "volatile". This differs from the usual byte,
integer, or float in how the system and compiler use it. If being
used as an interrupt routine variable be it byte, float, etc. is
must have a "volatile" declaration. The variable is set to 0 - in
reality we are using only one of the eight bits, bit 0.
In setup() we come to the function attachInterrupt(interrupt,
function, mode) where "interrupt" is the interrupt number 0 to
5; "function" is known as the interrupt service routine or ISR a
function address pointed to by the interrupt vector location;
"mode" configures the hardware electrical characteristics for an
interrupt. This is done internally by the compiler and hidden
from the user.
So in this case of attachInterrupt(0, toggle, FALLING) zero
corresponds to interrupt 0 on DP2, toggle() is the ISR routine at
the bottom of the program, and RISING means when an
electrical signal goes from 0V to 5V the toggle() ISR performs
its function - what started as state = LOW is now state = HIGH
and vise-versa. The right "}" is considered the "return"
command - in fact "return;" plased after "state = !state;" is
ignored and won't produce an error.
In other words loop() will simply keep writing the variable
"state" to the LED on DP9, and on an interrupt caused by
pressing SW0 will halt, save address counter, jump to ISR
toggle(), will come back where it stopped and continue.
Assuming the LED1 is off press SW0 and the LED will come
on, release nothing happens. Press again and the LED is off.
What toggle() really does is a bitwise XOR of 1; state = !state is
the same as state = state ^ 1.
With attachInterrupt(interrupt, function, mode) there are
four "mode" declarations that defines when the interrupt
should be triggered and are predefined as:
RISING to trigger when the pin goes from low to high - as
wired above press switch and LED state will toggle.
FALLING for when the pin goes from high to low - press
switch nothing, release switch LED state will toggle.
CHANGE to trigger the interrupt whenever the pin changes

value - press switch LED state will toggle, release switch
LED will toggle again.
LOW to trigger the interrupt whenever the pin is low - sort of

like FALLING but erratic - don't use.
Page 2 of 6
Prepared by: Jonel R Macalisang
The above program introduces several new concepts. There are no
"volatile" variables
defined or needed. Both INTR0 (DP2) and INTR1 (DP3) both
have their own separate ISR routines ISR0() and ISR1()
respectively. There is a separate non-interrupt subroutine
toggle().
In this case either ISR routines will simply call toggle() and will let
toggle() do the work.
Certain functions such as delay() won't work inside a ISR
function so it's a good idea to use separate subroutines as long
as they are not overly complex or time consuming - another
interrupt rolling onto an ISR called subroutine that hasn't
finished could be interesting.
In addition functions that use interrupts such as delay() will not
work if called from an ISR routine. For example the modified
version of toggle() that follows won't work if called by an ISR
but works fine if called from loop() or another non-interrupt
Page 3 of 6
subroutine. The selected LED will come on for two seconds
then go off.
The ISR routine maintains control of the interrupts until it's
finished and executes a "return" from interrupt command.
Page 4 of 6
In the above sketch press SW0 and LED1 will toggle. Press
SW1 and LED2 will turn on for 5 seconds at the same time
ISR1 disconnects INTR0. Press SW1 during this time and
when the 5 seconds are up LED1 will then toggle. If SW0 is
pressed more than once during that 5 seconds only one will be
remembered because flag0 will be interpreted as HIGH only
once even if the count is greater than 1.
Page 5 of 6
Supplemental Activities
 Provide a screenshot of your work here, and convert it on PDF file
one you submit. Also make sure you have the turn it in file on your
name.
Page 6 of 6

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CPET11L-M - Microprocessor and Microcontroller Systems, Lab

CHANGE to trigger the interrupt whenever the pin changes

LOW to trigger the interrupt whenever the pin is low - sort of

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