Leuze ROS drivers

This stack contains all packages of the ROS driver for the Leuze RSL 400 laser scanners.

Installation (from source)

Go to your catkin workspace:

cd ~catkin_ws/src/   
git clone https://gitlab.cc-asp.fraunhofer.de/ipa326/leuze_ros_drivers.git   
cd ..   
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y   
catkin build    
source ~catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash   

Installation (from deb – (Not Available yet) –)

You can install this driver stack directly through it’s binary distribution :

sudo apt install ros-<distro>-leuze-ros-drivers

where distro is your distribution of ROS. The driver has been successfully tested with ROS Kinetic and Melodic.

Until the Debian package is released via the ROS Build-farm, you can install it from source as mentioned above.

Scanner Setup

You can visit this page on the Leuze official website to download the Sensor Studio software tool and the Quick Start Guide document to help setup the communication settings of the scanner. Follow the instructions from the guide until you are successfully connected to the scanner.

Now we need to setup the static IP address of the scanner as well as the receiving device. To do so, go to the Settings tab on the top and expand the Communication option to the left.

Enter your desired static address for the scanner in the IP address field (this is the value you provide to the launch file as described in section Bringup) and the subnet mask in the Subnet mask field. The addresses assumed by default in this driver stack are 192.168.10.1 and 255.255.255.0 respectively.

Next, select the Data telegrams option to the left within the same tab. This allows us to setup the various settings for the UDP telegrams.

The various settings are :

• UDP Telegram : Ensure this is set to Active so we can actually receive data in the driver.
• Destination : Should be set to IP address.
• IP address : This refers to the IP address of the device receiving the datagrams (i.e. the device running this driver stack). You can set this to any desired value, the default assumed by this stack is 192.168.10.2.
• Device name : Enter any name you wish.
• Port : You can enter any value you wish. The default assumed by this driver stack is 9990.
• Measurement value transmission : Ensure set to Active.
• Data type : This allows you to select between ID: 6 for Distance only or ID: 3 for Distance+Signal Strength. Both are supported by this driver.
• The next 3 fields allow you to setup the scan area and resolution. Once you set these values, make sure to also update them in leuze_rsl_driver/config/params.yaml as well (albeit converted to radians). Failing to update the values only shows a warning during execution, but does not impair functionality. The default values can be seen in the image above and the yaml file respectively.

Once these settings have been updated, they need to be written to the device. You can do so by clicking on the small blue down arrow button at the top. Only the communication settings need to be updated, so select only this parameter in the ensuing dialog box. To upload any settings, you need to use the Engineer profile, and the password is safety be default. PLEASE BE SURE OF ANY SETTINGS YOU UPLOAD THIS WAY. Once you change the IPs, you may need to restart the scanner as well as the receiving device to reconnect.

Receving device Setup

Once the IPs have been setup correctly on the scanner, setting up the receiving device is relatively straightforward. You only need to create a new Wired connection with a desired name. The IPv4 address should be the IP address you entered in Settings>Data telegrams>IP address in Sensor Studio, the default value assumed by this driver stack is 192.168.10.2. The subnet mask would then similarly be 255.255.255.0 as previously setup in Settings>Communication>LAN.

Requirements

This driver stack requires the Phidget Interface Kit drivers in order to interface with the I/Os of the scanner. It can be found here. If you wish to utilize this feature, either install the Phidget driver from source by cloning it to the same workspace and building it, or install it directly as a Debian binary package:

sudo apt install ros-<distro>-phidgets-ik

where <distro> is your distribution of ROS (Kinetic/Melodic).

You can make sure you have everything else you need by running the following from your workspace directory:

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

Packages description

leuze_bringup : Contains the launch files for starting the ROS driver, main point of entry to this stack.
leuze_description : Contains the URDF of the scanner and the launch file for independently viewing it.
leuze_msgs : Contains all the custom messages required for internal functionality.
leuze_phidget_driver : Contains the Phidget IK driver package to read the I/Os of the scanner.
leuze_ros_drivers : Metapackage of this stack.
leuze_rsl_driver : Contains the main driver source code and its tests.

Bringup

You can start the Leuze RSL ROS driver by running :

roslaunch leuze_bringup leuze_bringup.launch sensor_ip:=<sensor ip> port:=<port>

Parameters

sensor_ip : The IPv4 address of the laser scanner. This can be configured from the Sensor Studio software tool in Windows. The scanner also displays its currently configured IP during power on startup.
port: The port number of the scanner. Can be similarly configured on Sensor Studio, but not displayed on the sensor during startup.

For more information on how to setup the IP and Port values of the scanner using Sensor Studio, see section Scanner Setup.

You can then view the scan profile by running :

roslaunch leuze_urdf view_rsl400.launch