

Here are some additional photos of the Hokuyo 3D Laser Scanner I designed to be mounted on a pioneer robot. It works fairly well aside from the standard issues of accuracy and backlash that are common when using servos. The screw holes in the mounting plate line up with the holes in the pioneers chassis for alignment.

This image shows a fused 3d laser point cloud of a room generated by using multiple robots for co-operative mapping.
4 comments:
Hi,
I was wondering if you had any tips on working with hokuyo laser scanners. I am an undergraduate researcher working with the Hokuyo UBG-04LX-F01, and assigned a project to use it to allow a robot to navigate its way down a hall. The truth is, haha, I'm not really sure where to start. Any resources you could point me too in terms of how to write a program interpret the data ( a giant matrix of numbers ) the scanner gives you for extremely simple autonomous navigation would be much appreciated. My email is phillip.dupree@gmail.com.
Thanks!
I suggest starting by looking at some of the existing research work that has been done and some of the tools that have already been developed.
Player/Stage and Pyro seem like good robotics frameworks that may already have drivers written for your robot and laser. Microsoft also makes something but I am more of a Unix person.
In terms of search navigation the A* and VFH algorithms are probably a good place to start reading.
Then I would start looking at the SLAM research to see what can be implemented.
If you are just trying to convert the data into something useful, the protocol information and a sample viewer are available from Hokuyo's website ask whoever bought the laser for the password.
Good luck with your project.
Another question - how do you access the data? I've gotten my laser scanner hooked up to my computer and can view the data via the VMON software that comes with it, but how do I capture the raw data, the actual giant matrix of numbers? Thanks again.
Basically you connect to it via serial and ask it to send you the raw data. The exact protocol spec is documented in some PDF somewhere on Hokuyo's website.
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