SLAM with Ouster lidar and Cartographer

This repository contains package, that integrates Ouster lidar (https://ouster.com/) with Cartographer (https://google-cartographer-ros.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) for realtime and offline/online SLAM. This repository is mainly to speed up the your process of getting into calibration of Cartographer for Ouster lidar.

Installation

Requires operating system with ros melodic (Ubuntu 18 with ros-melodic).

Further steps are run in the console:

1. Install cartographer packages or build them directly in your directory.

   • sudo apt install ros-melodic-cartographer-ros

   • sudo apt install ros-melodic-cartographer-ros-msgs

   • sudo apt install ros-melodic-cartographer-rviz

   • sudo apt install ros-melodic-uuid-msgs

   • sudo apt install ros-melodic-unique-id

2. Create a workspace directory

   • source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash -> your path to ROS
   • mkdir -p oslam_ws/src
   • cd oslam_ws
   • git clone git@gitlab.cit.fei.tuke.sk:mj154fi/ouster_slam.git src
   • cd src
   • git submodule update --init --recursive
   • cd ..
   • catkin_make

3. Launch ouster package and cartographer in a package. (check slam_launch.sh)

   • source devel/setup.bash -> source current enviroment
   • Here is the magic! You just have to setup three paths
     • BAGPATH = is the path to example bagfile (or your own *.bag)
     • CONFIGPATH = is the ouster lidar configuration json (provided with example bagfiles *.json, for your own scan it is generated .ros/...)
     • CARTOCONF = is the path of the configuration files of the cartographer ... (YOURPATH/oslam_ws/src/ouster_slam/)

   roslaunch ouster_slam os_slam.launch\
                            udp_hostname:=127.0.0.1\
                            replay:=true\
                            bag_filename:=${BAGPATH}\
                            metadata:=${CONFIGPATH}\
                            carto_conf:=${CARTOCONF}
   

Additional info

• The whole thing required just minor tweeking of ouster_example + remap in the launch file, some path configs...
• If you have solid PC, try tune OS1_64

Contribution

• Any simplification or improvement is more than WELCOME.
• Please submit your updates to os_slam.launch to simplify it
• Any configuration for specific sensor (os1-16, os1-64...) can be added as *.lua to config directory
• Visualization improvements
• The goal is to find optimal solutions (lua configs) for ouster lidar for indoor and outdoor mapping

Sample Data

• Sample sensor output usable with the provided ROS code is available here