LiDAR

LiDAR = light detection and ranging

Lidar is a method for determining ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver.

One of the really cool things with LiDAR is that you can actually still do 3D Object Detection with it!

• PCL: https://pointclouds.org/ → ROS natively uses this
• Open3D-ML: http://www.open3d.org/docs/release/open3d_ml.html
• Brief introduction to Lidar in ROS https://articulatedrobotics.xyz/mobile-robot-8-lidar/

LiDARs on the market

2D LiDAR

• Hokuyo (what I use for F1TENTH)
  • Runs at 40Hz
• Slamtec (used at Enlighted Robotics)
  • runs at 10Hz

ROS has a specific message type for 2D laser scan data, called sensor_msgs/LaserScan.

3D LiDAR

• Velodyne (used in WATonomous)

ROS handles point clouds using the sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 message type.