YDLIDAR GS2 Solid State Lidar User Manual
- June 4, 2024
- YDLIDAR
Table of Contents
GS2
USER MANUAL
DOC #:01.13.005602
www.ydlidar.com
Shenzhen EAI Technology Co., Ltd.
YDLIDAR GS2 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT
The development kit of YDLIDAR GS2 lidar (hereinafter referred to as GS2) is
an accessory tool provided for performance evaluation and early development of
the GS2.
Through the GS2 development kit, and with the evaluation software, users can
observe point cloud data scanned by GS2 on your environment or development on
the SDK.
1.1 Development Kit
The GS2 development kit has the following components：
FIG
1 YDLIDAR GS2 DEVELOPMENT KIT
CHART 1 YDLIDAR GS2 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT DESCRIPTION
| Item | Qty. | Description |
|---|---|---|
| GS2 lidar | 1 | The standard version of the GS2 lidar. |
USB Type-C
Cable| 1| Use with a USB adapter board to connect GS2 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 GS2 and PC.
Note: USB Adapter board has two USB TYPE C interface: 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, the
auxiliary power supply can be used.
USAGE UNDER WINDOWS
2.1 Device Connection
When evaluating and developing GS2 under windows, GS2, and PC needed to be connected. The specific process is as follows:
Connect the adapter board
with GS2 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.
The drive current of the USB interface of some development platforms or PC is
not sufficient. GS2 needs to be connected to the auxiliary power supply of
+5V, otherwise, the lidar will be abnormal. 
2.2 Driver Installation
To evaluate and develop the GS2 under Windows, the serial port driver of the
USB adapter board. The USB adapter board needs to be installed in this kit to
adopt the 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 unzipping 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 GS2 and PC
interconnection). 
2.3
Evaluation Software Usage
YDLIDAR provides Point Cloud Viewer, a point cloud data visualization software
LidarViewer for GS2 real-time scanning. Users can intuitively observe the GS2
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.
Before using the YDLIDAR software, make sure that the GS2 USB adapter board
serial port driver is installed successfully, and interconnect the GS2 with
the USB port of the PC.
Run the evaluation software: LidarViewer.exe, and select the corresponding
serial port number and model number. Meanwhile, users could choose the
language in the top right corner. 
If the connection is correct, users will see the
following screen：
2.3.1 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: 
2.3.2 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.
2.3.3 Display Mean and Standard Deviation
Click [Tools] in the main menu, then select [Mean And STD] – [View]. 
Choose one
according to to needs, move the mouse to the test position, right-click the
pop-up menu, and select [Lock Mouse Tracking]. 2.3.4 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:
2.3.5 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. 2.3.6
Split Screen
FIG 16 Right-click the pop-up menu and select [Split Screen Display] to
display up to 3 GS2 cascaded point cloud data. 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.
3.1 Device Connection
Under Linux, the GS2 and PC interconnect processes are consistent with those
under Windows. See Device Connection under Window.
3.2 Compile and Install YDlidar-SDK
3.2.1 SDK compilation
In the SDK directory, run the following command to compile the project:
$ cd build
$ make ..
$ make
3.2.2 Run the SDK samples
In the build folder, run ydlidar_test:
$ ./ydlidar.test
It can be seen the following SDK Scanning information:
3.3 The use
of ROS under Ubuntu
The Ros driver package is under development.
CAUTION
4.1 Ambient Temperature
When the working environment temperature of GS2 is over high or over low, 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 GS2
lidar. Avoid using in high temperature (>50 degrees Celsius) and low
temperature (<0 degrees Celsius) conditions.
4.2 Ambient Lighting
The ideal working environment of GS2 is indoor, and the indoor environment
light (including no light) will not affect the work of GS2. However, please
avoid using a strong light source (such as high-power lasers) to directly
illuminate the GS2 vision system.
If the users need to use it outdoors, please avoid the GS2’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 GS2 standard version will cause interference in the distance measurement
under the conditions of strong sunlight reflection outdoors, please pay
attention to it.
4.3 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 GS2, the external power supply of the +5V to the GS2 needs to be provided
through the USB_PWR interface of the USB interface board. It is not
recommended to use a mobile phone power bank because the voltage ripple of the
power bank is too large.
REVISE
| Version | Content |
|---|---|
| 1.0 | Revision |
Documents / Resources
|
YDLIDAR GS2 Solid State
Lidar
[pdf] User Manual
GS2, Solid State Lidar, GS2 Solid State Lidar
---|---