Rover-3.3 Object Avoidance with 360 lidar

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Rover-3.3 (and Copter-3.6) support the RP Lidar A2 which is a fairly low cost 360 degree lidar. As part of the preparations for the start of beta testing I mounted the lidar on my beloved AION Robotics R1 rover and did a few object avoidance tests as shown in the video above.

Setup details are here on the wiki and thanks to @amilcarlucas and his team who wrote the driver!

By the way, this vehicle has an NVidia TX1 onboard which is primarily used for live video but in the future I plan to connect the lidar to the TX1 and use ROS for the non-GPS navigation. The battery ejected near the end of the test is the one powering the TX1.

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I have been testing the A2 on copter and rover, and have found that uart 1 does not consistently provide enough power across tested boards. I would recommend using a dedicated 5V power supply for the lidar, as is the current method for other supported lidars. Readings are more stable as well. Great work though!

Also, the A2 units will require balancing. The vibrations can get pretty nasty. See this thread

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cthill24,
Txs for the feedback! I’ll update the wiki page to recommend using an external 5V power supply.

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Thanks @rmackay9, this will be great for Rovers and I’ve started to see 360 Lidars being used on boats too. Will the drivers and instructions in the Wiki also support the RP Lidar A3?

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I took a quick look at the A3 API. Yes, it looks like it will work.

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