Blickfeld ROS package

This package provides ROS node and nodelet for publishing PointCloud2 messages from Blickfeld LiDAR devices.
The driver is available under https://www.blickfeld.com/resources

Supported devices

The Blickfeld ROS driver supports the Blickfeld Cube 1, Cube 1 Outdoor, and Cube Range 1.

Supported ROS Distributions

The Blickfeld ROS driver supports the following ROS distributions

ROS Melodic Morenia (Ubuntu 18.04)
ROS Noetic Ninjemys (Ubuntu 20.04)

Dependencies

Please install the following dependencies on your system in advance.

blickfeld-scanner-library (BSL) with system-wide protobuf installation. Minimum required version is BSL Version 2.18.2
ROS Melodic Installation with Ubuntu 18.04 OR ROS Noetic Installation with Ubuntu 20.04

diagnostic_updater can be acquired via your distribution’s package manager, ${ROS_DISTRO} should be your ROS version. (e.g. melodic or noetic)

$ sudo apt install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-diagnostic-updater
$ sudo apt install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-diagnostic-msgs

or via

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

catkin: required for building the workspace

Build

Before building, please source your ROS distribution. You will need to run this command on every new shell you open to have access to the ROS commands. ${ROS_DISTRO} should be your ROS version. (melodic or noetic)

$ source /opt/ros/${ROS_DISTRO}/setup.bash

Create your catkin workspace:

$ mkdir -p ${catkin_workspace}/src

where ${catkin_workspace} is your custom directory. Move the ros_blickfeld_driver package into the {catkin_workspace}/src directory and build your workspace:

$ cd ${catkin_workspace}

$ catkin build

You may use catkin_make instead of catkin build as well.

Running the Blickfeld ROS node

You can start the Blickfeld driver as either node or nodelet. You can use the live_scanner.launch launch file for node. And live_scanner_nodelet.launch for nodelet.

You can launch the ROS driver in a DHCP controlled network by providing the Hostname of the Cube sensor (you can check and set the Hostname in the WebGUI of the device). E.g, cube-XXXXXXXXX, where XXXXXXXXX must be replaced by the 9-digit serial number of the Cube.

$ roslaunch blickfeld_driver live_scanner.launch host:=cube-XXXXXXXXX

or respectively

$ roslaunch blickfeld_driver live_scanner_nodelet.launch host:=cube-XXXXXXXXX

You should now be able to see a PointCloud2 in rviz on the /bf_lidar/points_raw topic. To visualize the published data, run rviz.

$ rviz

By default we do not start rviz, set the rviz parameter to true if you want to start rviz with the Blickfeld ROS driver:

$ roslaunch blickfeld_driver live_scanner.launch host:=cube-XXXXXXXXX rviz:=true

See the table with all available Parameters and there default configuration.

Parameters

Both launch files have arguments you can use:

Argument	Default	Note
host (required)		The hostname or the IP address of the Cube sensor you want to publish the point clouds from, e.g., `cube-XXXXXXXXX`.
lidar_frame_id	`lidar`	The ROS TF where the point cloud should be in.
node_name	`bf_lidar`	Name of this ROS node.
remap	`true`	Remap this node’s input/output topics to commonly used ones. If `false`, canonical names in the form of `$(arg node_name)/foo*(in/out)`are used, depending on whether a topic is an input or and output topic.
rviz	`false`	Start rviz if this argument is true.
publish_ambient_light	`false`	Set to `true` if the PointCloud2 message should contain the ambient light level.
publish_explicit_range	`false`	Set to `true` if the PointCloud2 message should contain the`range` field.
publish_intensities	`true`	Set to `true` if the PointCloud2 message should contain intensities.
publish_no_return_points	`false`	Set to `true` if the PointCloud2 message should contain points with a fixed range for pulses without a return. The fixed range can be configured using the `no_return_point_range` parameter.
publish_point_id	`true`	Outputs a frame-global id per laser pulse. If the device is configured to return multiple returns (multiple reflections) per pulse, point_id will be identical for all returns that belonged to the same laser pulse; In this case the `return_id` will differenciate the multiple returns from a laser pulse.
publish_point_time_offset	`false`	If set to `true`, the PointCloud2 message will contain the timestamp field per point, which represents the time offset from the start of the frame.
no_return_point_range	`1.0`	Set the fixed range for points that are output despite the laser pulse did not cause a return to be detected.
returns_publishing_options	`strongest`	Different options to publish multiple returns, possible values are: `strongest`, `closest`, `farthest`, and `all`, in case of `all`, the field `return_id` (ID for each returned point) is added to the point cloud. The `return_id` field is absent from the point cloud when the `returns_publishing_options` value is set to `strongest`, `closest` or `farthest`.
projection_type	`angle_preserving`	Different options to project the data onto a 2D image, possible values are: `angle_preserving` or `scanline_preserving`. These indicate if a correct spherical projection is desired, or each row of the image should correspond to one scanline.
publish_ambient_image	`false`	Set to `true` to publish an ambient light image.
publish_intensity_image	`false`	Set to true to publish an intensity image. In case multiple return is activated in cube, intensity image is created based on strongest return.
publish_range_image	`false`	Set to true to publish a range image. In case multiple return is activated in cube, range image is created based on strongest return.
publish_point_id_image	`true`	Set to `true` to publish an image with point ids. This image is not meant to be visualized in rviz.
imu_acceleration_unit	`g`	Different imu acceleration units: `g`, `meters_per_second_squared`.
publish_imu	`false`	Set to `true` to publish IMU data in burst mode.
publish_imu_static_tf_at_start	`false`	Call "Publish IMU tf transform" service once at the beginning. This service publishes the IMU data from device as static TF transformation.
use_lidar_timestamp	`true`	Set to `true` if the timestamp in the ROS point cloud message should be generated from the device timestamp; otherwise the timestamp will represent the ROS time when the frame was received on ROS.
use_background_subtraction	`false`	Enables on-device background subtraction.
use_neighbor_filter	`false`	Enables on-device neighbor filter.
background_subtraction_exponential_decay_rate	`0.005`	Exponential decay factor. Controls how fast objects switch between foreground and background when background subtraction is enabled.
background_subtraction_num_initialization_frames	`10`	Number of frames to initialize the background with.
ambient_image_out	`$(arg node_name)/ambient_image_out`	Topic to publish the ambient image on.
diagnostic_out	`$(arg node_name)/diagnostic`	Topic to publish the diagnostic status.
imu_out	`$(arg node_name)/imu`	Topic to publish the IMU burst data.
intensity_image_out	`$(arg node_name)/intensity_image_out`	Topic to publish the intensity image on.
point_cloud_out	`$(arg node_name)/points_raw`	Topic to publish the PointCloud2 message to.
range_image_out	`$(arg node_name)/range_image_out`	Topic to publish the range image on.
point_id_image	`$(arg node_name)/point_id_image`	Topic to publish the point id image on.

Services

The Blickfeld ROS driver advertises different services.

Set scan pattern

This service call will set scan pattern on a device.

e.g. rosservice call /bf_lidar/set_scan_pattern "{fov_horizontal: 72.0, fov_vertical: 30.0, angle_spacing: 0.4, scanlines_up: 28, scanlines_down: 28, frame_mode: 'COMBINE_UP_DOWN', pulse_type: 'INTERLEAVE'}"

Publish IMU tf transform

This service call will receive the static IMU data from device and creates a frame from the data with the frame_id $(arg lidar_frame_id)_imu.

rosservice call /$(arg node_name)/publish_imu_static_tf

License

This package is released under a BSD 3-Clause License (see also https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause)