{"id":9612,"date":"2016-01-20T14:15:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T12:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/?p=9612"},"modified":"2021-03-04T18:51:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T16:51:26","slug":"rplidar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/","title":{"rendered":"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat"},"content":{"rendered":"

We received our RPLIDAR this morning and, just as kids on Christmas day, we were very eager to play with it right away.<\/p>\n

But I’ll hold my horses, as I can hear you ask: “and what exactly is a RPLIDAR?”<\/p>\n

A RPLIDAR<\/a> is a low cost LIDAR sensor (i.e., a light-based radar, a “laser scanner”) from Robo Peak suitable for indoor robotic applications. Basically a cheaper version of that weird rotating thing you see on top of the Google self-driving cars. You can use it for collision avoidance and for the robot to quickly figure out what’s around it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/a>
Google self-driving car from https:\/\/www.google.com\/selfdrivingcar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We bought some sensors for our incoming robotic fleet that will take over the world (the true aim of our Cloud Robotics initiative<\/a>), and this is the first arrival.<\/p>\n

I didn’t have ROS<\/a> installed on my system and I really wanted to get going, so while TMB<\/a> proceeded with the HW unboxing and config I got started with the SW on my laptop.<\/p>\n

Here’s the RPLIDAR in all its might:<\/p>\n

\"RPLIDAR\"<\/a>
RPLIDAR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mind you, I run Ubuntu 14.04, so if your OS is different the process might need some adjustment.
\nThe whole thing is quite straightforward. The RPLIDAR starts spinning as soon as you plug it in your laptop USB port. The software part involves installing ROS, providing it some basic configuration, creating a workspace, downloading the ROS node for the RPLIDAR, and building it with catkin. Although it looks like a lot of commands it takes a very short time.
\nAnyhow, here’s the quick and dirty list of commands I entered to get it working:<\/p>\n

### Install ros (Jade) according to this guide: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/jade\/Installation\/Ubuntu\r\nsudo sh -c 'echo \"deb http:\/\/packages.ros.org\/ros\/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main\" > \/etc\/apt\/sources.list.d\/ros-latest.list'\r\nsudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp:\/\/pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-key 0xB01FA116\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get install ros-jade-desktop-full\r\n\r\n### init ros\r\nsudo rosdep init\r\nrosdep update\r\necho \"source \/opt\/ros\/jade\/setup.bash\" >> ~\/.bashrc\r\nsource ~\/.bashrc\r\nsudo apt-get install python-rosinstall\r\n\r\n### Create a ROS Workspace\r\nmkdir -p ~\/catkin_ws\/src\r\ncd ~\/catkin_ws\/src\r\ncatkin_init_workspace\r\n\r\n### Clone the ROS node for the Lidar in the catkin workspace src dir\r\ngit clone https:\/\/github.com\/robopeak\/rplidar_ros.git\r\n\r\n### Build with catkin\r\ncd ~\/catkin_ws\/\r\ncatkin_make\r\n\r\n### Set environment when build is complete\r\nsource devel\/setup.bash\r\n\r\n### Launch demo with rviz\r\nroslaunch rplidar_ros view_rplidar.launch\r\n<\/pre>\n
Result:<\/strong><\/p>\n
\"Screenshot<\/a>Rviz will pop-up and show a background grid. The “view” from the laser scanner will be marked in red. The laser scanner is positioned at the center of the grid, it has a range of roughly 15cm to 6 meters, so you’ll be able to see everything around it on its scanning plane within that range.<\/p>\n
Troubleshooting<\/strong>
\nIf you get permission errors on accessing the USB device with ROS take a look here:
\nhttp:\/\/question2722.rssing.com\/browser.php?indx=42655234&last=1&item=4<\/p>\n
TL;DR – run this:<\/p>\n
sudo gpasswd --add ${USER} dialout\r\nsu ${USER}\r\n<\/pre>\n
Then cd to catkin dir and run the last two commands above.<\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
 <\/p>\n
Schlagw\u00f6rter: cloud robotics<\/a>, LPIDAR<\/a>, robotics<\/a>, ROS<\/a>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We received our RPLIDAR this morning and, just as kids on Christmas day, we were very eager to play with it right away. But I’ll hold my horses, as I can hear you ask: “and what exactly is a RPLIDAR?” A RPLIDAR is a low cost LIDAR sensor (i.e., a light-based radar, a “laser scanner”) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,943],"tags":[743,742,692,741],"features":[],"class_list":["post-9612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein","category-cloud-robotics-articles","tag-cloud-robotics","tag-lpidar","tag-robotics","tag-ros"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat - Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We received our RPLIDAR this morning and, just as kids on Christmas day, we were very eager to play with it right away. But I’ll hold my horses, as I can hear you ask: “and what exactly is a RPLIDAR?” A RPLIDAR is a low cost LIDAR sensor (i.e., a light-based radar, a “laser scanner”) […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-20T12:15:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-04T16:51:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype-1024x683.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"toff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"toff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"toff\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#\/schema\/person\/74df05bfae7fb875d9ea5d48ae234738\"},\"headline\":\"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-20T12:15:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-04T16:51:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\"},\"wordCount\":406,\"commentCount\":14,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype-1024x683.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"cloud robotics\",\"LPIDAR\",\"robotics\",\"ROS\"],\"articleSection\":[\"*.*\",\"Cloud Robotics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\",\"name\":\"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat - Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype-1024x683.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-01-20T12:15:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-04T16:51:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#\/schema\/person\/74df05bfae7fb875d9ea5d48ae234738\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"Google self-driving car from https:\/\/www.google.com\/selfdrivingcar\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Startseite\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/\",\"name\":\"Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)\",\"description\":\"A Blog of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#\/schema\/person\/74df05bfae7fb875d9ea5d48ae234738\",\"name\":\"toff\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2014\/12\/gio_barca-150x150.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2014\/12\/gio_barca-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2014\/12\/gio_barca-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"toff\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/author\/toff\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat - Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat","og_description":"We received our RPLIDAR this morning and, just as kids on Christmas day, we were very eager to play with it right away. But I’ll hold my horses, as I can hear you ask: “and what exactly is a RPLIDAR?” A RPLIDAR is a low cost LIDAR sensor (i.e., a light-based radar, a “laser scanner”) […]","og_url":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/","og_site_name":"Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)","article_published_time":"2016-01-20T12:15:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-03-04T16:51:26+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype-1024x683.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"toff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"toff","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/"},"author":{"name":"toff","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#\/schema\/person\/74df05bfae7fb875d9ea5d48ae234738"},"headline":"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat","datePublished":"2016-01-20T12:15:17+00:00","dateModified":"2021-03-04T16:51:26+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/"},"wordCount":406,"commentCount":14,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype-1024x683.jpg","keywords":["cloud robotics","LPIDAR","robotics","ROS"],"articleSection":["*.*","Cloud Robotics"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/","url":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/","name":"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat - Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype-1024x683.jpg","datePublished":"2016-01-20T12:15:17+00:00","dateModified":"2021-03-04T16:51:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#\/schema\/person\/74df05bfae7fb875d9ea5d48ae234738"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2016\/01\/prototype.jpg","width":1200,"height":800,"caption":"Google self-driving car from https:\/\/www.google.com\/selfdrivingcar"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/rplidar\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Startseite","item":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"From unboxing RPLIDAR to running in ROS in 10 minutes flat"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/","name":"Service Engineering (ICCLab & SPLab)","description":"A Blog of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/#\/schema\/person\/74df05bfae7fb875d9ea5d48ae234738","name":"toff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2014\/12\/gio_barca-150x150.jpg","url":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2014\/12\/gio_barca-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/files\/2014\/12\/gio_barca-150x150.jpg","caption":"toff"},"url":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/author\/toff\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9612"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12829,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions\/12829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9612"},{"taxonomy":"features","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.zhaw.ch\/icclab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features?post=9612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}