Generic driver for SICK laser scanner

Generic C++ library for SICK laser scanner. Currently we support Windows and Ubuntu 18.04LTS for x86 architectures with this software. Within the demo the gathered data is stored at regular intervals as CSV data and as an image file in JPEG format. The image file shows the scan data in the top view.

This driver should work with all of the following products.

To install, follow the steps below:

1. clone repository

git clone https://github.com/SICKAG/sick_scan_base.git

2. create Makefile by using cmake

cd sick_scan_base
cmake .

3. compile the software

make

1. Start software e.g. with

sick_generic_caller ./launch/sick_mrs_1xxx.launch hostname:=192.168.0.72

In general the software starts with the following options:

sick_generic_caller <launch-file> [<tag1>:=<value1>] [<tag2>:=<value>] ... [<tagn>:=<valuen>]

The tag/value pairs overwrite the settings in the launch file.

The software starts, connects to the scanner and writes data to the demo directory at regular intervals. It generates a top view scan image and a csv data file.

The HTML file image_viewer.html can be loaded into your favorite browser for checking purposes. The generated scan image is then shown in the browser.

You can find reference outputs in the demo directory.

For the launch-file settings and the tag/values pairs the following keywords are supported:

This driver supports the following x86-based operating systems:

• Ubuntu 18.04 with gcc
• Windows 10 with Visual Studio Compiler (VS2017, VS2019)

MRS1104 MRS1000 MRS1xxx sick_scan SICK LiDAR SICK Laser SICK Laserscanner TiM5xx TiM551 TiM561 TiM571

• In case of technical support please open a new issue. For optimal support, add the following information to your request:

1. Scanner model name,
2. Ros node startup log,
3. Sopas file of your scanner configuration. The instructions at http://sickusablog.com/create-and-download-a-sopas-file/ show how to create the Sopas file.

• In case of application support please use https://supportportal.sick.com .
• Issue Handling: Issues, for which no reply was received from the questioner for more than 7 days, are closed by us because we assume that the user has solved the problem.

The software is very similar to the ROS driver sick_scan. For FAQ and troubleshooting please also have a look at https://github.com/SICKAG/sick_scan

❓ Question: sick_generic_caller gives you an answer like:

"ERROR: Tcp::open: Failed to open TCP connection to 192.168.0.1, aborting."

✅ Answer:

1. Try to ping your device:

   ping 192.168.0.1

2. Disconnect your scanner and retry ping

   ping 192.168.0.1

   The result of ping contains a pattern like

    ... Destination Host Unreachable

3. Reconnect your device and try to ping:

   ping 192.168.0.1

If you do not know the ip address, try to find the ip address in your subnet:

apt-get install fping

scan your network (for example, subnet 192.168.10.0/24):

192.168.0.1/24

search for all ip addresses from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.0.255

The result is similar to:

192.168.0.4 is alive
192.168.0.22 is alive

and a lot of unreachable entries. In the example the ip address 192.168.0.4 is the laserscanner MRS1104 and the ip address 192.168.0.22 is the computer running linux. Check this with

ifconfig|grep 192.168.0.22

❓ Question: My scanner does not use the default ip address. What shall I do?

✅ Answer: There are two options doing this:

• Permanently:
  Replace the following entry with your ip address.

  <param name="hostname" type="string" value="192.168.0.1" />

• Temporarily
  Use a command line argument in addition to the launch file argument:

   hostname:=192.168.0.2

❓ Question: During start phase the are warning/error message like

no answer received after 5000 ms. Maybe sopas mode is wrong.

and some more warning/error messages:

✅ Answer: In this case the driver tries to start the scanner in binary mode. If this is not possible, warnings and error messages are generated. The driver switches the scanner from ASCII mode to binary mode and then restarts communication. The messages can therefore be ignored. For a long-term solution, we recommend switching from ASCII to binary communication with SOPAS ET under Windows.

❓ Question: I would like to process data with my own methods.

✅ Answer: Search for keyword "PUBLISH_DATA:" in the code and replace the code for writing jpeg-files and CSV-files with your own source code.

• The intensity values in the csv demo file are currently 0.
• If the scanner type is not selected correctly in the launchfile (e.g. launch->mrs_1xxx hardware->tim_5xx) starts the software and then crashes when receiving the first packet with a "bad pointer".

Michael Lehning

• http://www.lehning.de

on behalf of SICK AG

• http://www.sick.com