YDLIDAR G6 360 Degree Laser Range Finder User Manual

YDLIDAR G6 360 Degree Laser Range Finder

YDLIDAR G6 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT

The development kit of YDLIDAR G6 lidar (hereinafter referred to as G6) is an accessory tool provided for performance evaluation and early development of the G6. Through the G6 development kit, and with the evaluation software, users can observe point cloud data scanned by G6 on your environment or development on the SDK.

Development Kit

The G6 development kit has the following components:

FIG 1 FIG 1 YDLIDAR G6 DEVELOPMENT KIT

CHART 1 YDLIDAR G6 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT DESCRIPTION

drive, which can realize motor stall control and motor control
USB Type-C Cable| 1| Use with USB adapter board to connect G6 and PC. USB cable is both a power supply cable and a data cable

USB Adapter Board

| ****

1

| Realize USB to UART, convenient for G6 and PC to quickly interconnect. Meanwhile, it supports serial port DTR signal to control G6 motor rotation

and stop. In addition, a Micro USB power interface (PWR) for auxiliary power supply is provided

Note: USB Adapter board has two USB TYPE C interface:USB_DATA、USB_PWR.
USB_DATA: Data power supply multiplexing 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 G6 is evaluated and developed under windows, G6 and PC need to be interconnected.
The specific process is as follows:

FIG 2 YDLIDAR G6 DEVICE CONNECTION STEP 1

FIG 3 YDLIDAR G6 DEVICE CONNECTION STEP 2
Connect the adapter board with G6 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 interface board, and the idle mode is used after G6 is powered on. The motor does not rotate.
The drive current of the USB interface of some development platforms or PC is not sufficient.
G6 need to be connected to the auxiliary power supply of +5V, otherwise the lidar will be abnormal.

FIG 4 YDLIDAR G6 AUXILIARY POWER SUPPLY

Driver Installation

To evaluate and develop the G6 under Windows, you need to install the serial port driver of the USB adapter board. The USB adapter board 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.

https://www.ydlidar.com/dowfile.html?id=97
http://cn.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge- vcp-drivers

After decompressing 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.

FIG 5 YDLIDAR G6 DRIVER VERSION SELECTION

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

FIG 6 YDLIDAR G6 DRIVER INSTALLING
After the installation is complete, you can 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 G6 and PC interconnection).

FIG 7 YDLIDAR G6 DRIVER INSTALLATION CHECK

Evaluation Software Usage
YDLIDAR provides G6 real-time scanning point cloud data visualization software LidarViewer. Using this software, users can intuitively observe the scanning effect of G6. YDLIDAR provides G6 real-time point cloud data and real-time scanning frequency. At the same time, G6 version information can be read, and the scanned data can be saved 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 G6 USB adapter board serial port driver is installed successfully, and interconnect the G6 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.

FIG 8 YDLIDAR G6 EVALUATION SOFTWARE

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

FIG 9 POINTCLOUD VIEWER INTERFACE

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:

FIG 10 LIDAR SCANNING POINT CLOUD DISPLAY

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.

FIG 11 SAVE DATA

Scan Frequency
is used to adjust the scanning frequency (motor speed) of the lidar. Click this control, the system will pop up a frequency setting bar, which can be automatically adjusted according to requirements. When the lidar is in the scan state, you need to click the scan control again after adjusting the scan frequency. The speed can be adjusted by dragging the control, the control of scanning frequency is shown in the figure below:

FIG 12 SCAN FREQUENCY ADJUSTMENT

Display Mean and Standard Deviation

Click [Tools] in the main menu, then select [Mean And STD] – [View].

FIG 13 YDLIDAR G6 DISPLAY MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
Choose one according to your needs, move the mouse to the test position, right-click the pop-up menu, and select [Lock Mouse Tracking].

FIG 14 LOCK MOUSE TRACKING

Play and Record

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

FIG 15 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:

FIG 16 PLAY PROCESS

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.

FIG 17 START DEBUGGING

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

FIG 18 FILTER SETTING

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 G6 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 you have never installed the YDLidar -SDK library, or it has expired, you must first install the YDLidar-SDK library. If you have the latest version of YDLidar -SDK installed, please skip this step, then go to the next step.

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

ROS Driver Installation

1. Cloning GitHub’s ydlidar_ros_driver Package:
   $ git clone https://github.com/YDLIDAR/ydlidar_ros_driver.gitydlidar_ws/src/ydlidar_ros_driver

2. Build the ydlidar_ros_driver software package:
   $ cd ydlidar_ws
   $ catkin_make

3. 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 you start a new shell:
   $ echo “source ~/ydlidar_ws/devel/setup.bash” >> ~/.bashrc
   $ source ~/.bashrc

4. Verify that your package path is set, echo the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH variable.
   $ echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH
   You should see something like this: /home/tony/ydlidar_ws/src:/opt/ros/melodic/share

5. 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 G6_G7.launch

RVIZ View Scan Results

Run the launch file and open rviz to view the G6 scan results, as shown in the figure below:
$ roslaunch ydlidar_ros_driver lidar_view.launch

Note: G4 lidar is taken as an example by default. If other types of lidars are used, lidar.launch in the lidar_view.launch file needs to be changed to the corresponding **.launch file. (If G6 lidar is used, it needs to be changed to G6_G7.launch)

FIG 19 YDLIDAR G6 RVIZ

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:

1. Switch to the directory where the corresponding [launch file] is located, edit the file, and its content is as shown in the figure:
   $ vim G6_G7.launch
   FIG 20 G6_G7.LAUNCH FILE

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 G6 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.

FIG 21 YDLIDAR G6 COORDINATES DEFINITION

CAUTION

Ambient Temperature
When the working environment temperature of G6 is too high or too low, it will affect the accuracy of the distance measuring system. It may also damage the structure of the scanning system and reduce the life of the G6 lidar. Avoid use in high temperature (>50 degrees Celsius) and low temperature (<0 degrees Celsius) conditions.

Ambient Lighting
The ideal working environment of G6 is indoor, and the indoor environment light (including no light) will not affect the work of G6. However, please avoid using strong light sources (such as high-power lasers) to directly illuminate the G6’s vision system.
If you need to use it outdoors, please avoid the G6’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 G6 standard version will cause interference in the distance measurement under the conditions of outdoor strong sunlight reflection, 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 G6, the external power supply of the +5V to the G6 needs to be provided through the USB_PWR interface of the USB interface board. It is not recommended to use mobile phone power bank because the voltage ripple of power bank is too large.

REVISE

configuration description, and power supply requirements
2020-06-09| 1.2| Adapt to PointCloudViewer2.0 client
2021-08-02| 1.3| Adapt LidarViewer client, update SDK and ROS tutorial

www.ydlidar.com

References

• CP210x USB 至 UART 桥 VCP 驱动器 - 芯科科技
• SETUP.SH
• GitHub - YDLIDAR/ydlidar_ros_driver: ydlidar driver package under ros
• GitHub - YDLIDAR/ydlidar_ros_driver: ydlidar driver package under ros
• GitHub - YDLIDAR/YDLidar-SDK: Driver for receiving YD LiDAR data and more...
• GitHub - YDLIDAR/YDLidar-SDK: Driver for receiving YD LiDAR data and more...
• ydlidar.com/dowfile.html?id=97

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