YDLIDAR X2 360 Degree 2D Laser Range Lidar Sensor User Manual

: June 9, 2024
: YDLIDAR

Table of Contents

YDLIDAR X2 360 Degree 2D Laser Range Lidar Sensor
YDLIDAR X2 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT
USAGE UNDER WINDOWS
LINUX ROS OPERATION
- Run the ydlidar_ros_driver
CAUTION
REVISE
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
Download This Manual (PDF format)

YDLIDAR X2 360 Degree 2D Laser Range Lidar Sensor

YDLIDAR X2 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT

The development kit of YDLIDAR X2 lidar (hereinafter referred to as X2) is an accessory tool provided for performance evaluation and early development of the X2. Through the X2 development kit, and with the evaluation software, users can observe point cloud data scanned by X2 on your environment or development on the SDK.

Development Kit

The X2 development kit has the following components:

CHART 1 YDLIDAR X2 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT DESCRIPTION

Item	Qty.	Description
X2 Lidar	1	Standard version of the X2 lidar. The X2 has an integrated motor

drive for despin control and motor control
USB Type-C Cable| 1| Use with USB adapter board to connect X2 and PC. USB cable is both a power supply cable and a data cable

USB Adapter Board

| ****

1

| Realize the function of USB to UART, which is convenient for the fast interconnection between X2 and PC. Serial port DTR signal to control X2

motor despin control, a Micro USB power interface (PWR) for auxiliary power supply is provided

Note: USB Adapter board has two USB TYPE C interfaces: USB_DATA, USB_PWR. USB_DATA: Data-powered interface. In most cases, this interface can be used to meet power and communication requirements. USB_PWR: Auxiliary power supply interface. The USB interface of some development platforms has weak current drive capability. At this time, auxiliary power supply can be used.

USAGE UNDER WINDOWS

Device Connection

When evaluating and developing X2 under windows, X2 and PC needed to be connected. The specific process is as follows:

Connect the adapter board with X2 first, then connect the USB cable to the USB port of the adapter board and the PC. Note that the Type-C interface of the USB cable is connected to the USB_DATA of the USB adapter board, and the X2 enters the idle mode after being powered on. The motor does not rotate.
The drive current of USB interface of some development platforms or PC is not sufficient. X2 need to be connected to the auxiliary power supply of +5V, otherwise the lidar will be abnormal.

Driver Installation

To evaluate and develop the X2 under Windows, the serial port driver of the USB adapter board. The USB adapter board need to be installed of this kit adopts CP2102 chip to realize serial port (UART) to USB signal conversion. Its driver can be downloaded from our official website or downloaded from the official website of Silicon Labs.

After unzip the driver package, run the CP2102’s Windows driver installation file (exe file under CP210x_VCP_Windows). Please select the 32-bit version (x86) or 64-bit version (x64) installation program according to the version of the windows operating system.

Double-click the exe file and follow the prompts to install it.

After the installation is complete, right-click on [My Computer] and select [Properties]. On the open [System] screen, select [Device Manager] from the left menu to access the [Device Manager].

Expand [Port] to see the serial port name corresponding to the identified USB adapter, that is, the driver installation is successful. The following figure shows COM3. (Note that the port must be checked in case of X2 and PC interconnection).

Evaluation Software Usage

YDLIDAR provides Point Cloud Viewer, a point cloud data visualization software LidarViewer for X2 real-time scanning. Users can intuitively observe the X2 scanning effect chart. GDL real-time point cloud data and real-time scanning frequency are provided on YDLIDAR. At the same time, save the scanned data offline to an external file for further analysis. Visualization software download link: https://www.ydlidar.com/Public/upload/download/TOOL.zip

Before using the YDLIDAR software, make sure that the X2 USB adapter board serial port driver is installed successfully, and interconnect the X2 with the USB port of the PC. Run the evaluation software: LidarViewer.exe, select the corresponding serial port number and model number. Meanwhile, users could choose language on the top right corner.

If the connection is correct, you will see the following screen

Start Scanning

Click to start scanning and display the environment point cloud, the upper left corner displays the angle & distance information of the red line position (unit: mm). Click to stop it. as shown below:

Data Storage

During lidar scanning, click [File] in the main menu, select [Export to Excel], and save point cloud data according to the prompts. Then the system will save the point cloud information scanned in a circle in Excel format.

Display Mean and Standard Deviation

Click [Tools] in the main menu, then select [Mean And STD] – [View].
Choose one according to needs, move the mouse to the test position, right-click the pop-up menu, and select [Lock Mouse Tracking].

Play and Record

Click [Tools] in the main menu, then select [Record and Play].

The main window is displayed as follows

To record lidar data, click to start recording, and click to stop recording.
In non-scanning mode, click to start play.

The play process is as follows

Debug

Click [Tools] in the main menu, and then select [DebugON] to output the raw lidar data to the “viewer_log.txt” and “viewer_log_err.txt” files.

Filter

Click [Tools] in the main menu, and then select [Filter] to add lidar data filtering algorithm.

Note: For more functions of LidarViewer, please click [Help], select [More Information], and learn more about how to use it.

LINUX ROS OPERATION

There are many Linux versions，this article only uses Ubuntu 18.04, Melodic version ROS as an example.

SDK driver address: https://github.com/YDLIDAR/YDLidar-SDK
ROS driver address: https://github.com/YDLIDAR/ydlidar_ros_driver

Device Connection

Under Linux, the X2 and PC interconnect processes are consistent with those under Windows. See Device Connection under Window.

Compile and Install YDlidar-SDK

YDLIDAR_ROS_DRIVER depends on the YDLIDAR-SDK library. If never installed the YDlidar-SDK library before, or it has expired, it is necessary to install the YDlidar-SDK library. If you have the latest version of ydlidar-SDK, please skip this step, then go to the next step.

ROS Driver Installation

Cloning GitHub’s YDlidar ROS Driver Package:
- $ git clone https://github.com/YDLIDAR/ydlidar_ros_driver.git-ydlidar_ws/src/ydlidar_ros_driver
Build the Ydlidar_ROS_Driver software package:
- $ cd ydlidar_ws
- $ catkin_make
Package Environment Settings:
- $ source ./devel/setup.sh
- Note: Add permanent workspace environment variables. It will be very convenient if ROS environment variables are automatically added to your bash session every time when start a new shell:
- $ echo “source ~/ydlidar_ws/devel/setup.bash” >> ~/.bashrc
- $ source ~/.bashrc
Verify that the package path is set, echo the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH variable.
- $ echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH
- It can see something like this: /home/tony/ydlidar_ws/src:/opt/ros/melodic/share Create
Serial Port Alias [Optional]
- $ chmod 0777 src/ydlidar_ros_driver/startup/*
- $ sudo sh src/ydlidar_ros_driver/startup/initenv.sh

Note: After completing the previous operation, re-insert the LIDAR again.

Run the ydlidar_ros_driver

Run ydlidar_ros_driver with startup file, as shown below:

$ roslaunch ydlidar_ros_driver X2.launch

RVIZ View Scan Results

Run the launch file and open rviz to view the X2 scan results, as shown in the figure below:

$ roslaunch ydlidar_ros_driver lidar_view.launch

Note: Take G4 as an example by default, if use other types of lidar, need to change lidar.launch in lidar_view.launch file to the corresponding **.launch file. (If X2 lidar is used, it needs to be changed to X2.launch)

Modify Scan Angle

The scanning data seen by running the launch file is displayed by default with 360- degree data. To modify the display range, you need to modify the configuration parameters in the launch file. The specific operation is as follows:

Switch to the directory where the corresponding [launch file] is located, edit the file, and its content is as shown in the figure:
- Note: For more information about the file contents, please refer to: https://github.com/YDLIDAR/ydlidar_ros_driver#configure-ydlidar_ros_driver-internal-parameter
The X2 lidar coordinates follow the right-hand rule within ROS, with an angle range of [-180, 180]. “angle_min” is the start angle, and “angle_max” is the endangle. The specific scope needs to be modified according to actual use.

CAUTION

Ambient Temperature

When the working environment temperature of X2 is overhigh or overflow, it will affect the accuracy of the distance measuring system. It may also damage the structure of the scanning system and reduce the service life of the X2 lidar. Avoid using in high temperature (>50 degrees celsius) and low temperature (<0 degrees celsius) conditions.

Ambient Lighting

The ideal working environment of X2 is indoor, and the indoor environment light (including no light) will not affect the work of X2. However, please avoid using strong light sources (such as high-power lasers) to directly illuminate the X2 vision system. If you need to use it outdoors, please avoid the X2’s vision system directly facing the sun, which may cause permanent damage to the vision system’s photosensitive chip, which will invalidate the range finding. The X2 standard version will cause interference in the distance measurement under the conditions of strong sunlight reflection outdoors, please pay attention to it.

Power Supply

During the development process, since the drive current of the USB interface of each platform or the USB interface of the computer may be too low to drive the X2, the external power supply of the +5V to the X2 needs to be provided through the USB_PWR interface of the USB interface board. It is not recommended for use mobile phone power bank because the voltage ripple of power bank is too large.

REVISE

Date	Version	Content
2017-12-05	1.0	Composing a first draft
2018-01-22	1.1	Added auxiliary power connection method, document

description, configuration description, and power supply requirements
2018-04-03| 1.2| Adapt to PointCloudViewer2.0 client
2021-08-02| 1.3| Adapt LidarViewer client, update SDK, ROS tutorial

www.ydlidar.com

DOC#:01.13.000202