Transmitting a byte over UART in Embedded C - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Transmitting a byte over UART

📖 Scenario: You are working on a small embedded system that communicates with other devices using UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter). Your task is to send a single byte of data over UART.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple program that sets up a byte variable and sends it over UART using a function call.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable to hold the byte to send

Create a variable for the UART port number

Call the UART transmit function with the correct parameters

Print a confirmation message after transmission

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Embedded systems often communicate with sensors, displays, or other devices using UART. Sending bytes correctly is essential for data exchange.

💼 Career

Understanding UART communication is important for embedded software engineers working on hardware interfaces and device drivers.

1

Create the byte data to send

Create a variable called data_byte of type unsigned char and set it to 0xAB.

Embedded C

# Create a variable called data_byte of type unsigned char and set it to 0xAB
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use unsigned char to hold one byte and assign it the hexadecimal value 0xAB.

2

Set the UART port number

Create an int variable called uart_port and set it to 1.

Embedded C

unsigned char data_byte = 0xAB;
// Create an int variable called uart_port and set it to 1
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an integer variable to represent the UART port number.

3

Transmit the byte over UART

Call the function uart_transmit with arguments uart_port and data_byte to send the byte.

Embedded C

unsigned char data_byte = 0xAB;
int uart_port = 1;
// Call uart_transmit(uart_port, data_byte) to send the byte
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the function uart_transmit with the UART port and data byte as parameters.

4

Print confirmation message

Write a printf statement to print "Byte 0xAB sent on UART port 1\n".

Embedded C

unsigned char data_byte = 0xAB;
int uart_port = 1;

uart_transmit(uart_port, data_byte);
// Print confirmation message
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use printf to show the message exactly as given.