Detect Serial Baud Rate

edited 2008-12-12 16:31 in Microcontrollers

Automatically Detecting Serial Baud Rate As discussed on the prior page, the transmitter and receiver each needs to be within 2% of the agreed bps/baud rate to ensure accurate serial communication. Usually this means pre-programming or configuring the rate in both devices, and using either an individually compensated oscillator or a crystal. Correct USART communication requires the transmission and reception baud rates to be matched reasonably closely, otherwise communication errors may occur. Automatic baud rate detection is useful when establishing a communication link between two devices, where the slave device is able to detect the baud rate of the master controller.

Serial port baud ratesSerial
My question concerns the different ways for the SX to detect serial baud rates and to automatically adjust the timing to recv. correctly.
Google brings this site:
www.iol.ie/~ecarroll/autobaud.html
In this scheme, a known ascii character - [noparse][[/noparse]Return] key - is sent to the micro which initially starts rec'ving at 9600. If the sending baud rate is different then the rec'ving 9600, the rec'vd data is 'corrupted' in a known fashion which the code in the micro can distinguish and adjust for, ending up with the correct timing.
Well, I don't have the luxury of sending out a known character to calibrate , so to speak, the rec'ing baud rate of the micro. I'm connecting to devices with unknown data streams at odd baud rates (8800, for example).
I'm thinking of measuring the period of bits first rec'vd , finding the shortest one and assuming that's the period for the correct baud rate. I need to figure out the proper baud rate after rec'ving one byte and respond correctly to continue the handshakes.
Is there any another algorithm for auto baud rate detection I could consider?
Thanks,
Kevin
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Baud

Comments

  • edited 2008-11-29 17:13
    All of the methods for automatic Baud detection rely on some knowledge of the incoming character stream, usually that there are characters coming in with a little time between them so that the start bit can be detected. Usually the characters are odd in value so that the start bit (0) is always followed by a one bit and the width of the start bit is used to set the Baud.
    Your suggestion to measure the width of pulses received and assume that these represent received bits, finding the shortest one and using that for determining the Baud, is reasonable, but don't expect any reliability with arbitrary data streams. I don't think you'll find any better algorithm though. The problem is that the first character that comes along may have no single isolated bits and you'll end up with a Baud that's half or a third of the correct Baud. If there's any noise in the datastream, your Baud detection will be thrown off by that.
    Basically, you've got a bad situation. There is no good solution, but what you suggest will work some of the time. If you can put in a timeout where the whole system resets if synchronization fails and it starts over from the beginning, you at least will have some chance of achieving communications.
  • edited 2008-12-12 16:31
    Thanks, Mike for the reply.
    As an aside to dealing with non-standard baud rates, I've found a neat and free terminal program called RealTerm. Works great for diagnosing serial streams.
    realterm.sourceforge.net/
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Serial

DNC Wizard
If you are unsure about your CNC baudrate and parity protocol settings, and your CNCs end of block characters, then ProDNC can easily autodetect these out by using the DNC Wizard.


Step 1 : Select the CNC you want to analyze...


Step 2 : ProDNC will automatically detect all your PC serial ports. Simply select the COM port you want to use.


Step 3 : You should now take a guess at the CNC range. (ProDNC will cycle through all ranges, its just quicker if you have a rough idea)
The vast majority of CNC machines will fall into the Average category, between 2400 and 9600 baud. Slow is between 150 and 1200 baud (and in general is a much older CNC), whilst the Fast category is between 19200 and 115200 baud (in general a much more modern CNC).


Step 4 : You should now send out a file FROM YOUR CNC back to the computer and let ProDNC cycle through the protocols, you will see garbage data gradually be replaced by legible data.


Step 5 : When detection has happened, you will go to this screen. You can then click 'Store Settings Away' or click Cancel.

Detect Serial Baud Rate 2020