RSLiDAR SDK for ROS 2

1 Introduction

rslidar_sdk is the Software Development Kit of the RoboSense Lidar based on Ubuntu. It contains:

• The lidar driver core rs_driver is embedded into this respository for interfacing with a Robosense LiDAR.

1.1 LiDAR Supported

• RS-LiDAR-16
• RS-LiDAR-32
• RS-Bpearl
• RS-Helios
• RS-Helios-16P
• RS-Ruby-128
• RS-Ruby-80
• RS-Ruby-48
• RS-Ruby-Plus-128
• RS-Ruby-Plus-80
• RS-Ruby-Plus-48
• RS-LiDAR-M1
• RS-LiDAR-M2
• RS-LiDAR-E1

1.2 Point Type Supported

• XYZI - x, y, z, intensity
• XYZIRT - x, y, z, intensity, ring, timestamp

2 Download

2.1 Download via Git

Download the rslidar_sdk as below. Since it contains the submodule rs_driver, please also use git submodule to download the submodule properly.

git clone https://github.com/RoboSense-LiDAR/rslidar_sdk.git
cd rslidar_sdk
git submodule init
git submodule update

2.2 Download directly

Instead of using Git, user can also access rslidar_sdk_release to download the latest version of rslidar_sdk.

Please download the rslidar_sdk.tar.gz archive instead of Source code. The Source code zip file does not contain the submodule rs_driver, so it has to be downloaded manaully.

3 Dependencies

3.1 ROS

To run rslidar_sdk in the ROS environment, please install below libraries.

• Ubuntu 16.04 - ROS Kinetic desktop
• Ubuntu 18.04 - ROS Melodic desktop
• Ubuntu 20.04 - ROS Noetic desktop

For installation, please refer to http://wiki.ros.org.

It's highly recommanded to install ros-distro-desktop-full. If you do so, the corresponding libraries, such as PCL, will be installed at the same time.

This brings a lot of convenience, since you don't have to handle version conflict.

3.2 ROS2

To use rslidar_sdk in the ROS2 environment, please install below libraries.

• Ubuntu 16.04 - Not supported
• Ubuntu 18.04 - ROS2 Eloquent desktop
• Ubuntu 20.04 - ROS2 Galactic desktop
• Ubuntu 22.04 - ROS2 Humble desktop

For installation, please refer to https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Installation/Eloquent/Linux-Install-Debians/

Please do not install ROS and ROS2 on the same computer, to avoid possible conflict and manually install some libraries, such as Yaml.

3.3 Yaml (Essential)

version: >= v0.5.2

If ros-distro-desktop-full is installed, this step can be skipped

Installation:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y libyaml-cpp-dev

3.4 libpcap (Essential)

version: >= v1.7.4

Installation:

sudo apt-get install -y  libpcap-dev

4 Compile & Run

Please compile and run the driver in three ways.

4.1 Compile directly

(1) On top of the file CMakeLists.txt，set the variable COMPILE_METHOD to ORIGINAL.

#=======================================
# Compile setup (ORIGINAL,CATKIN,COLCON)
#=======================================
set(COMPILE_METHOD ORIGINAL)

(2) In ROS (unfortunately not ROS2), user can compile it directly.

Please laucn ROS master node roscore in advance, and use rviz to visualize point cloud.

cd rslidar_sdk
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make -j4
./rslidar_sdk_node

4.2 Compile with ROS catkin tools

(1) On top of the file CMakeLists.txt，set the variable COMPILE_METHOD to CATKIN.

#=======================================
# Compile setup (ORIGINAL,CATKIN,COLCON)
#=======================================
set(COMPILE_METHOD CATKIN)

(2) Copy the file package_ros1.xml to package.xml in the rslidar_sdk .

(3) Create a new workspace folder, and create a src folder in it. Then put the rslidar_sdk project into the src folder.

(4) Go back to the root of workspace, run the following commands to compile and run. (if using zsh, replace the 2nd command with source devel/setup.zsh).

catkin_make
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch rslidar_sdk start.launch

4.3 Compile with ROS2 colcon

(1) On top of the file CMakeLists.txt，set the variable COMPILE_METHOD to COLCON.

#=======================================
# Compile setup (ORIGINAL,CATKIN,COLCON)
#=======================================
set(COMPILE_METHOD COLCON)

(2) Copy the file package_ros2.xml to package.xml in the rslidar_sdk.

(3) Create a new workspace folder, and create a src folder in it. Then put the rslidar_sdk project in the src folder.

(4) Download the packet definition project in ROS2 through link, then put the project rslidar_msg in the src folder you just created.

(5) Go back to the root of workspace, run the following commands to compile and run. (if using zsh, replace the 2nd command with source install/setup.zsh).

colcon build
source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch rslidar_sdk start.py

Another version of start.py may be used, since it is different on different versios of ROS2. For example, elequent_start.py is used instead for ROS2 elequent.

5 Introduction to parameters

To change behaviors of rslidar_sdk, change its parameters. please read the following links for detail information.

Intro to parameters

Intro to hidden parameters

6 Quick start

Below are some quick guides to use rslidar_sdk.

Connect to online LiDAR and send point cloud through ROS

Decode PCAP file and send point cloud through ROS

Change Point Type

7 Advanced Topics

Online Lidar - Advanced topics

PCAP file - Advanced topics

Coordinate Transformation

Record rosbag & Replay it