analogRead() output oscillates even though the pin is grounded

Question

I'm using Arduino Micro to read from 5 flex sensors and display the corresponding angles to the Serial monitor. I am currently having quite some problems with the oscillating values I am getting from the analogRead(). It doesn't seem to matter whether the pin is connected to a flex sensor or just grounded - the output is oscillating a lot.

Originally everything was being read and outputted just fine but I wanted to have an exact 100Hz sampling frequency and tried to play a bit with Timer Interrupts. And that's when this oscillating behaviour started. I reversed to my original code, which just uses some delay(), and simplified to only read from two pins, but cannot seem to shake off the oscillations.

I think I may have messed up something about ADC when trying to implement Interrupts, but I don't know how to check it or fix it. Please, help me figure out how to fix this!

This is the raw output of analogRead. The drop in values occurs when I bend the flex sensor:

And this is the resulting calculated angle. Also oscillating:

This is the code I've been using to read the pins:

int fin;
const int input[5] = {A0,A1,A2,A3,A4}; // the analog pins

int flex[5]; // analog signal read
float flexV; 
float flexR[5]; // resistance on the 47k resistor
int angle[5]; // joint angles

const float VCC = 4.98; // Measured voltage of Arduino 5V line
// Measured resistance of the 47k resistors R1-R5
const float R[5] = {45900.0,45900.0,45900.0,45900.0,45900.0}; 

// Calibration values of resistance measured during straight phase and 90 deg bend phase
const float R_STRAIGHT[5] = {37651.0,37651.0,37651.0,37651.0,37651.0};
const float R_BEND[5] = {71783.0,71783.0,71783.0,71783.0,71783.0};

void setup() {

}

void loop() {

  for(fin = 0; fin <= 4; fin++) {
   flex[fin] = analogRead(input[fin]);
   flexV = flex[fin]*VCC/1023.0;
   flexR[fin] = R[fin] * (VCC/flexV - 1.0);
   angle[fin] = map(flexR[fin],R_STRAIGHT[fin],R_BEND[fin],0,90.0);
   delay(1);   
    }
    Serial.print(angle[0]);
    Serial.print(" ");
    Serial.print(angle[1]);
    Serial.print(" ");
    Serial.print(angle[2]);
    Serial.print(" ");
    Serial.print(angle[3]);
    Serial.print(" ");
    Serial.print(angle[4]);
    Serial.print(" ");
    Serial.println(millis());
    delay(6);   
}

Answer 1

You have nothing in your setup loop. You need to set up all the inputs as inputs.

You setup() should look like this:

void setup() 
 {
   Serial.begin(9600);
   for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++);
    {
      pinMode(input[i], INPUT);
    }
 }

The code cycles through your array "input", setting all the pins as inputs. Try that.