Livox-3D-lidar

Detailed Basic setup of Livox lidar (model : MID360)

LIVOX MID360

Product Link : LIVOX-MID-360

Livox MID-360 LiDAR Sensor Features

• Laser Wavelength: 905 nm
• Laser Safety: Class 1
• Field of View:
  • Horizontal: 360°
  • Vertical: -7° to 52°
• Detection Range:
  • 40 meters at 10% reflectivity
  • 70 meters at 80% reflectivity
• Point Rate: 200,000 points per second
• Frame Rate: 10 Hz
• Operating Temperature: -20°C to 55°C
• Protection: IP67 (water and dust resistant)

For more details, visit the Livox MID-360 Specs.

Electrical Connections

• Connect the positive(Red) and negative (Black) wire to Power supply.
• Operating VOltage : 9V to 27V
• Connect the Ethernet port to the Laptop for Data Communication.

MID-360 Co-ordinates

• Cartesian Coordinates (x, y, z)
  • Cartesian coordinates represent positions in a 3D space using three perpendicular axes
• Spherical coordinates (r, θ, φ)
  • spherical coordinates represent positions using a radial distance, an azimuthal angle, and a polar angle.

Software setup

• I have used the ROS2 HUMBLE for visualizing the data from the Lidar.

GITHUB PAGE FOR ROS2 DRIVER https://github.com/Livox-SDK/livox_ros_driver2

Requirements

• ROS2

https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Installation.html (distro: Humble)

• Colcon is a build tool used in ROS2.

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions 

• Lidar packages
  • Livox_ros2_driver
  • Livox SDK

Livox_ros2_driver

mkdir -p livox_ws/src/

cd livox_ws/src/

git clone https://github.com/Livox-SDK/livox_ros_driver2.git 

Note: Be sure to clone the source code in a '[work_space]/src/' folder (as shown above), otherwise compilation errors will occur due to the compilation tool restriction.

Without the LIVOX SDK, we cannot run the ros2_driver.

Livox SDK installation:

• Livox SDK2 is a software development kit designed for all Livox lidars.

Install the CMake using apt

sudo apt install cmake

Compile and install the Livox-SDK2

cd /livox_ws/src/

git clone https://github.com/Livox-SDK/Livox-SDK2.git

cd ./Livox-SDK

mkdir build

cd build

cmake .. && make -j

sudo make install

• After cloning livox_ros_driver2 and LIVOX-SDK2 we need to build the following ,

cd livox_ws/src

./build.sh humble

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.sh

• Once both the packge is build and now we are ready to run the lidar.

• Last but not least we need to configure the IP address of the Lidar and the host_system (PC)

IP Configuration

• You can launch the Livox viewer 2 for determining the Ip address of the Lidar.

• You can download the Livox viewer2

LIVOX VIEWER SOFTWARE

• After determining the Lidar’s IP we need to configure our systems IP as same as the subnet of the Lidar’s IP.

Eg.

• Lidar’s IP : 192.168.0.159

• Our system IP should be 192.168.0.<any_num>

Lidar Launch config

• LiDAR Configurations (such as ip, port, data type... etc.) can be set via a json-style config file.
• Config files for Mid360 are in the "config" folder.
• The parameter naming 'user_config_path' in launch files indicates such json file path.
• We need to configure ,
  • Lidar's IP
  • Host IP (System IP) in the config of the launch file for successful connection and communication with the Livox lidar.

Lidar Launch files

source ../../install/setup.sh
ros2 launch livox_ros_driver2 [launch file]

in which,

• [launch file] is the ROS2 launch file you want to use; the 'launch_ROS2' folder contains several launch samples for your reference.

launch file name	Description
rviz_MID360.launch	Connect to MID360 LiDAR device Publish pointcloud2 format data Autoload rviz
msg_MID360.launch	Connect to MID360 LiDAR device Publish livox customized pointcloud data

- ros2 launch livox_ros_driver2 rviz_MID360.launch

- ros2 launch livox_ros_driver2 msg_MID360.launch (This launch will be used in mapping purpose later on)