Many control applications require calculating an angular position when the Cartesian position data is given. The arctangent function makes this possible. A major setback to this is that the trigonometric functions supplied with the ‘C’ math library uses and returns float variables. Although very accurate, the processing overhead resulting from using the floating-point math routines can be prohibitive. Techniques are discussed to calculate an arctangent to a specific resolution. Software is presented using these techniques for an arctangent function that returns the calculated angle in 100ths of a degree resolution using signed 8-bit X and Y values.
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