ros2-ouster-tools

Tools and utilities for working with Ouster LiDARs. This set of packages does not provide a driver but rather tools and utilities to complement the ROS2 Ouster Driver.

Tested Configurations

ros2-ouster-tools version	Linux distribution	ROS distribution	Ouster LiDAR	Ouster Firmware
0.1.0	Ubuntu 18.04	Eloquent	OS1-16	1.13.0
0.2.0	Ubuntu 20.04	Foxy	OS1-16	1.13.0

What's Included?

Packages

• ouster_dhcp: Manage IP address allocation to Ouster LiDARs on Linux.
• ouster_h5: Record Ouster LiDAR data to HDF5. The intention is to support analysis. It is not intended to be a replacement for rosbag.
• ouster_perf: Performance analysis of using Ouster LiDARs within ROS2.
• ouster_ptp: PTP clock synchronization tools between ROS2 Linux hosts and Ouster LiDARs.

This is (currently) no inter-dependencies between the above packages. If there is a piece of functionality you do not want, you can skip building a particular package by placing a COLCON_IGNORE file in the top-level directory of that package prior to building (see build instructions below).

Building and Installing the Software

Preliminaries

ouster_dhcp

If you want to use our provided DHCP server wrapper, you will need dnsmasq on your system:

$ sudo apt install dnsmasq-base

ouster_h5

If you wish to use the HDF5 recording capabilities of this toolbox, you will need to first install h5_bridge.

ouster_ptp

If you want to use our PTP time syncing tools (or follow along with some of our docs on syncing the LiDAR to your system time) you will need the following:

$ sudo apt install linuxptp chrony ethtool

Cloning the sources

To clone this repository, please use the following command -- there is a dependency on the linuxptp source as a submodule:

$ git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:Box-Robotics/ros2-ouster-tools.git

Optional, but highly recommended, we patch the linuxptp sources prior to building. Assuming you have just cloned this repo:

$ cd ros2-ouster-tools/ouster_ptp/
$ patch third_party/linuxptp/pmc_common.c pmc_common.c.patch
patching file third_party/linuxptp/pmc_common.c
Hunk #1 succeeded at 682 (offset 29 lines).

NOTE: This must be done in addition to installing the linuxptp binaries as we did in the above section. We compile the linuxptp sources so we can build the pmc client as a shared object file that we then leverage via our pmc_node ROS node.

Building with colcon

We use the following shell script to build and install the software via colcon.

#!/bin/bash

colcon build \
  --install-base "${BOX_ROS2}/ouster_tools" \
  --cmake-args " -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release" \
  --event-handlers console_cohesion+

NOTE: The ${BOX_ROS2} environment variable is set prior to running this script and points to the root directory of where we install ROS2 packages on our system outside of a workspace. Modify as you see fit.

Post-installation setup

NOTE: This only applies if you have built the ouster_ptp package.

The pmc_node provided with this package (for monitoring PTP time sync) assumes it is running on a machine that has a ptp4l daemon running locally. It communicates with ptp4l via a Unix Domain Socket (UDS). So, there are some permissions related items we need to take care of to ensure this will all work properly without having to run the ROS node as root or (even more of a pain) as setuid root.

Stop the ptp4l daemon:

$ sudo systemctl stop ptp4l.service

Create a new Linux group called ptp:

$ sudo groupadd -r ptp

Now edit /etc/systemd/system/ptp4l.server.d/override.conf so that ptp4l will run as this new group. Mine looks like:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/ptp4l -f /etc/linuxptp/ptp4l.conf
Group=ptp

Have systemd reload the configuration and restart ptp4l:

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start ptp4l.service

We can now check the ptp4l UDS file permissions. Group ownership should belong to the ptp group we just created:

$ ls -l /var/run/ptp4l
srw-rw---- 1 root ptp 0 Apr  9 12:25 /var/run/ptp4l

Now, you need to add yourself (or whoever the ROS node will run as) to the ptp group as well. For exemplary purposes, we will use my username, tpanzarella.

$ sudo usermod -a -G ptp tpanzarella

You will now need to log out and log back in for this to take effect. Once you log back in, you can validate with:

$ groups
tpanzarella adm dialout cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare wireshark ptp

Finally, you can check that the permissions are all setup properly by using the linuxptp supplied pmc commandline tool. It does not matter if the LiDAR is plugged in or not. You should should see output similar to what I show below:

$ pmc -u -i /var/tmp/pmc.sock -b 1 "GET TIME_STATUS_NP"
sending: GET TIME_STATUS_NP
	e86a64.fffe.f43c5b-0 seq 0 RESPONSE MANAGEMENT TIME_STATUS_NP
		master_offset              0
		ingress_time               0
		cumulativeScaledRateOffset +0.000000000
		scaledLastGmPhaseChange    0
		gmTimeBaseIndicator        0
		lastGmPhaseChange          0x0000'0000000000000000.0000
		gmPresent                  false
		gmIdentity                 e86a64.fffe.f43c5b

The point here is that you can run pmc without having to sudo.

LICENSE

Please see the file called LICENSE

Copyright © 2020 Box Robotics, Inc.