LIDAR experiements

  

 Working on the lidar I discovered that you first need to create the build directory before you cd into it.

$ git clone https://github.com/YDLIDAR/YDLidar-SDK.git
$ cd YDLidar-SDK/build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ sudo make install

 

lidar is -60mm in the x dimension. 0 in the y. 1/2 height of robot in the z.

It can be launched with 

roslaunch ydlidar_ros_driver X4.launch

roslaunch ydlidar_ros_driver lidar_view.launch

Then you can view the results in rviz.

The next step is for me to establish the transforms from the lidar to the center of the robot. I can do that by defining a static tf broadcast or by specifying that in the URDF (
Unified Robotics Description Format) file. Then I can make the visualization better.