Raspberry Pi and Arduino Notification System

Question

I am trying to make a notification system using an ultrasonic sensor with an Arduino to detect when there is something in the way of a door, once the obstruction is detected, I have a timer start, once the timer goes off data is sent to the Raspberry Pi. I have figured out how to get the Raspberry Pi to read the data through the serial port when it is sent from the Arduino and email a notification, but it requires me to install py.serial in the terminal and initialize the reading on Python to begin with. I don't want the system to be dependent on a monitor or a person to be constantly typing in the command.

Is there any way to automate this process?

This is what I have for the Arduino:

 int vcc = 2;
 int trig = 3; 
 int echo = 4; 
 int gnd = 5; 
long previouscm = 0; // will store last time LED was updated
 long previousinches= 0; // will store last time LED was updated
 long interval = 25; // distance of door
 unsigned long previousMillis = 0;
void setup() {
 //initialize USS
 pinMode (vcc,OUTPUT);
 pinMode (gnd,OUTPUT);
 // initialize serial communication:
 Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
//constantly checking distance
//act based on this change
// establish variables for duration of the ping,
// and the distance result in inches and centimeters:
unsigned long currentMillis = millis(); 
long duration, inches, cm, currentinch, currentcm; //variables
long timespan;
//setup USS to read
pinMode(trig, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(trig, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(2);
digitalWrite(trig, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(5);
digitalWrite(trig, LOW);
pinMode(echo, INPUT);
duration = pulseIn(echo, HIGH);
// convert the time into a distance
inches = duration / 74 / 2;
cm = duration / 29 / 2;
//previouscm=0 interval= 25 cm(to door)
if (cm - previouscm < interval) {
 previousMillis= currentMillis - previousMillis;
}
 delay(300000);
 if (previousMillis=60000){
 Serial.print(inches);
 Serial.print("in, ");
 Serial.print(cm);
 Serial.print("cm");
 Serial.println();
 }
}

and this is what I have for the Raspberry Pi:

import serial
ser=serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM0',9600)
while 1:
 data = ser.readline()[:-2]
 if data:
 import smtplib
 content = ("Blood has been stored for 72 hours.")
 mail = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com",587)
 mail.ehlo()
 mail.starttls()
 mail.login('email','pass')
 mail.sendmail('email','toemail',content) 
 mail.close()
 print("Sent")

To install pyserial in the terminal I always have to input:

cd pyserial-3.0.1
sudo python setup.py install

• Mark Smith: If you edit your question to include what you have to type, I'll try to indicate how to convert it to a command to run at boot.
• Christina M: I put all my info in the question thank you so much
• Ghanima: Please consider investigating in the direction pointed to by Mark's answer. The details of the script as inserted by the last edit will probably not help any further.
• Ghanima: Please check this raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/8734/…
• joan: Are you installing this on multiple Pis? You should only need to run the command "cd pyserial-3.0.1; sudo python setup.py install" once.

Answer 1

I think your question simplifies to "how do I run a command automatically at startup?"

The answer to that is to put the command into a file such as /etc/rc.local.