Using the Hokuyo UST-05LN laser rangefinder with urg_node

Question

I'm trying to get the Hokuyo UST-05LN laser rangefinder working with ROS Indigo.

I have successfully connected a UST-05LA model (which I believe is nearly identical to the LN) to the urg_node and taken laser scans with data coming from the USB. However when I connect the LN the device is recognised as a USB device in linux but the node cannot connect to it. The error message in the master log is:

ERROR [/tmp/binarydeb/ros-indigo-urg-node-0.1.10/src/urg_node.cpp:245(main) [to pics:/rosout] Error connecting to Hokuyo: Could not initialize Hokuyo:

Any suggestions?

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Originally posted by ChrisU on ROS Answers with karma: 1 on 2017-11-03

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by gvdhoorn on 2017-11-04:
It could just be that urg_node is incompatible with the specific device you are trying to use it with. You could try to see whether you can find anyone who has already done what you're trying to do. Otherwise you'll probably have to figure out what is not working ("cannot connect to it" is vague).

Comment by ChrisU on 2017-11-06:
Sorry I didn't have the exact error message to hand at the time. I have updated my question with the message from the log file.

Comment by mrlebowski on 2018-03-07:
Hi ChrisU, already found a solution yet?

Answer 1

Hi, I also tried to use the hokuyo node without success. I asked Hokuyo the usb specifications of the UST-05LN and that is what they answer me :

UST-05LN is not designed to support distance data output. Therefore, we have no communication protocol specification for this model. If you need distance data, please consider of using UST-10/20LX or UST-05LA. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

However, we can visualize data from the AreaDesigner. So I sniffed a bit the data exchanged over USB when using this software, and I write this piece of code : https://gist.github.com/Fabien-B/87e57316e5b265ca42d179f3c860f879

I just started to do this few hours ago, so there is a lot more work to do to have a full support of the sensor functionalities, however it should be sufficient to retrieve the measurement data.

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Originally posted by Fabien-B with karma: 26 on 2018-06-18

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1