Need suggestion regarding use of laserscanner or radar

Question

Hi,

I am currently doing research in the field of Autonomous Navigation. Although this question might be slightly inappropriate for ROS forum, I decided to post it for getting some good suggestions. I have been using LMS Sick-200 laser-scanner for performing 2D detection of obstacles for velocity estimation. However, if I check the state-of-the-art technology, most of the vehicles (Vovlo, Google, Ford, Honda, etc) use RADAR sensors (both long and short range) for performing tasks like object detection, collision avoidance, velocity estimation, etc. Can anyone suggest whether it would be a better decision to shift to RADAR and whether I would get enough support in ROS and the available wrappers and drivers if I start using Radar instead of laser-scanners (like how it is available for SICK and Hokuyo lidars). Thanks

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Originally posted by Ashesh Goswami on ROS Answers with karma: 36 on 2014-05-15

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by SorinV on 2017-07-11:
Did you find any resources on radars? It's been 3 years but radars are still not a part of ROS as they are used in the autonomous vechicles projects, and as you said, they are cheaper than a LIDAR

Answer 1

I do not know of any support for RADAR sensors in ROS at this time (which doesn´t mean it doesn´t exist somewhere, only that their use is very uncommon). LIDAR based sensing (SLAM, point cloud processing etc.) however is ubiquitous in the ROS world, so from an availability standpoint LIDAR sensors are the clear winners. It also appears to me that Velodyne type sensors are still the main sensor for 360deg coverage object detection, collision avoidance etc. on most (highly) autonomous car projects (certainly the Google one). Caveats due to cost or the desire to have a "clean" car configuration apply of course.

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Originally posted by Stefan Kohlbrecher with karma: 24361 on 2014-05-15

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by Ashesh Goswami on 2014-05-17:
thanks a lot..yes I agree that the Velodyne 3D LIDARS are the main sensors used for complex autonomous car projects but it is a very expensive tool to be used in case I am planning to perform comparatively easier tasks like lane change or collision avoidance..so I guess I should keep the hunt on to see if any radar related help is available..otherwise I would stick to the SICK LMS laser-scanner.