sick_scan_xd - Driver and tools for SICK LiDAR and RADAR devices

This project provides a driver for SICK LiDARs and Radar sensors mentioned here. The driver supports both Linux (native, ROS 1, ROS 2) and Windows (native and ROS 2). See the CHANGELOG.md for the latest updates.

Main features and characteristics:

• Support of ROS 1 (Linux), ROS 2 (Linux and Windows)
• Generic C/C++ and Python API for usage without ROS (Linux and Windows)
• SLAM support
• Compatible with x64 and ARM64 architecture (incl. Raspberry Pi)
• No dependencies to 3rd party libraries like boost

Table of contents

Executive Summary

This documentation is intended to provide background information on the maintenance and extension of the repository.

Table of Contents

• Adding a new device to the driver
  • Naming convention
  • Launch files
  • Code modification
• Bloom releases
  • First time installation of toolchain
  • Release build for ROS 1
  • Release build for ROS 2
  • Check status
  • Useful links and information
• Unit tests
• Docker testing
  • Docker on Linux
    • Build and run all sick_scan_xd docker tests on Linux
    • Build and run sick_scan_xd for ROS 1 noetic
      • Build and run with sick_scan_xd from local sources
      • Build and run with sick_scan_xd sources from a git repository
      • Build and run with prebuilt sick_scan_xd binaries
  • Docker on Windows
    • Build and run sick_scan_xd dockertests on Windows
  • Docker configuration
    • Test configuration
    • Configuration of error test cases
    • Data export from docker container
    • Test reports
    • Data preparation
• Simulation
  • Simulation on Linux
  • Simulation on Windows
• Profiling
  • Installation
  • Usage

Adding a new device to the driver

This driver is designed to support several sensor families from SICK. This documentation describes how to add additional devices to the driver.

Naming convention

For each device type a name pattern is assigned as follows: sick_<device family>_<identifier>

The name type is used in the code to decide which scanner-specific parameters are set. The name type is passed as a parameter as follows:

<param name="scanner_type" type="string" value="sick_lms_5xx" />

Launch files

A launch file is created for each device type, which usually has the same naming convention as the scanner type. To create a new device, it is recommended to copy, rename and edit an existing launch file.

Code modification

1. Hint: Construction of parser:

    sick_scan_xd::SickGenericParser *parser = new sick_scan_xd::SickGenericParser(scannerName);
    

1. Add string constant like the constant SICK_SCANNER_RMS_XXXX_NAME

2. Append this constant to allowedScannerNames like allowedScannerNames.push_back(SICK_SCANNER_RMS_XXXX_NAME); in the file sick_generic_parser.cpp

3. Add new parameter block like

	if (basicParams[i].getScannerName().compare(SICK_SCANNER_MRS_1XXX_NAME) == 0)
	{...
	} in the file sick_generic_parser.cpp
	

1. Copy the file sick_generic_radar.cpp and add a new class following the structure of this file.

Bloom releases

Summary of bloom release build:

• Update release repositories for rosdistros noetic, humble, iron and jazzy with bloom-release on Linux:

   cd /tmp
   bloom-release --rosdistro noetic -d sick_scan_xd # update release repository https://github.com/SICKAG/sick_scan_xd-release.git, argument -d enables debug infos
   bloom-release --rosdistro humble -d sick_scan_xd # update release repository https://github.com/ros2-gbp/sick_scan_xd-release.git, argument -d enables debug infos
   bloom-release --rosdistro iron   -d sick_scan_xd # update release repository https://github.com/ros2-gbp/sick_scan_xd-release.git, argument -d enables debug infos
   bloom-release --rosdistro jazzy  -d sick_scan_xd # update release repository https://github.com/ros2-gbp/sick_scan_xd-release.git, argument -d enables debug infos
   

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