mmWave-Radar

Data Collection Process

Steps to set up data collection environment.

Tested on Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS on Nano Jetson and AWR1843BOOST mmWave radar board

1. Create conda environment conda create -n <env_name> python=3.9

2. Install ROS1 noetic from https://foxglove.dev/blog/installing-ros1-noetic-on-ubuntu

3. Clone the following repo and ROS serial to your <workspace>/src:

   git clone https://git.ti.com/git/mmwave_radar/mmwave_ti_ros.git
   git clone https://github.com/wjwwood/serial.git
   

4. The folder mmwave_ti_ros from the cloned repo, will have three subfolders; create an empty file with the name CATKIN_IGNORE with no extension and place it in the ros2_driver and autonomous_robotics_ros subfolders. Also, place this in the ros1_driver/src/serial folder.

5. To resolve a potential issue with Rviz, go to ros1_driver/src/ti_mmwave_rospkg/launch and locate the launch file 1843_multi_3d_0.launch. In the launch file change this line <param name="frame_id" value="/ti_mmwave_0"/> to <param name="frame_id" value="ti_mmwave_0"/>, basically remove the / symbol.

6. Then, from <workspace>/src where the repo was cloned, go back to <workspace> and run the following commands:

   source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash
   catkin_make && source devel/setup.bash
   echo "source <workspace_dir>/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
   

7. To enable data ports, run the following commands:

   sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM0
   sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyACM1
   

8. Then, go to the launch folder in ros1_driver and when in this directory, run the following command to collect data:

   roslaunch ti_mmwave_rospkg 1843_multi_3d_0.launch
   

9. Then open a new terminal and run the following command to subscribe to the ros topic

   source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash
   python3 data_collector.py
   

10. Remember to toggle SOP2,1,0 to “001" on the mmwave radar board to get the board into functional mode to produce pcl data

Debugging

1. If you encounter the error AttributeError: module 'em' has no attribute 'RAW_OPT’:

   Uninstall empy: `pip uninstall empy`
   And install version 3.3.4: `pip install empy==3.3.4`
   

2. Check the following repo for debugging other errors https://github.com/radar-lab/ti_mmwave_rospkg/tree/master

Subsequent data collection

Once the environment is set, subsequently, repeat steps 6 to 10 to collect data with the mmWave baord