how do i use ultrasonic transmitter and receivers?

Question

i want to design something that can measure the distance of an oblect using a microcontroller. what i have thought of is .. when i press a button a pin of the micrcontroller(uC) will go high. this will lead to the transmission of the ultrasonic waves from the transmitter. at the same time i will start a counter in the microcontroller which wil increase every micro second. when the receiver gets the reflected signal it make one pin high or rather input some signal to the micrcontroller. when the uC receives this signal the counter will stop and a distance will be calculated based on that counter value.

can anyone please tell me wether this thing will work or not.. also i want to know how to generate soun waves from that transmitter.. will it just start signalling them as soon as give them the required voltage? .. also what happens when the receiever gets those waves?.. is there any voltage difference or something like that...

any help will be greatly appreciated

"how do i make my transmitter send ultrasonic sound waves using a microcontroller.. do i have to just give supply voltage or a pulse train of certain frequency or something else? "

Answer 1

yes it can.
im guessing your using time difference of arrival to get the distance. Does it have to be ultra sonic.
why not just get a transceiver pair. All you would have to do is send out a some byte and have the other end receive it and send back another byte to stop your counter and to the math