xense-ros

ROS2 wrapper for the Xense tactile-visual sensor, built on libxensesdk.

Branch: This repository uses humble as the default branch (for ROS2 Humble / Ubuntu 22.04). Active development for ROS2 Jazzy / Ubuntu 24.04 lives on the jazzy branch.

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Packages

Package	Description
xense_camera	Main driver node — streams tactile sensor data as ROS2 topics
xense_msgs	Custom message definitions for marker and force data

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Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 22.04 with ROS2 Humble installed
• libxensesdk built and installed to /usr/local

  cd ~/libxensesdk
  cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
  cmake --build build -j$(nproc)
  sudo cmake --install build

• System dependencies:

  sudo apt install -y nlohmann-json3-dev

• ROS2 dependencies:

  sudo apt install -y \
    ros-humble-rclcpp \
    ros-humble-sensor-msgs \
    ros-humble-geometry-msgs \
    ros-humble-cv-bridge \
    ros-humble-image-transport \
    ros-humble-tf2-ros

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Building

cd ~/xense-ros
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
colcon build --symlink-install
source install/setup.bash

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Usage

Basic launch (rectified stream only, default)

ros2 launch xense_camera xense_launch.py

Enable difference stream (single mode)

ros2 launch xense_camera xense_launch.py enable_diff:=true

Enable difference stream (continuous mode)

ros2 launch xense_camera xense_launch.py enable_diff:=true diff_mode:=continuous

Select a specific device by serial

ros2 launch xense_camera xense_launch.py device_serial:=OG000456

Use a params file

ros2 launch xense_camera xense_launch.py \
  params_file:=$(ros2 pkg prefix xense_camera)/share/xense_camera/config/xense_params.yaml

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Topics

All topics are published under the node's namespace (default: /xense_camera).

Publishers use RELIABLE QoS (depth 10) — compatible with rviz2 and all standard ROS2 subscribers out of the box.

Topic	Type	Encoding	Enabled by
~/raw/image_raw	sensor_msgs/Image	bgr8	enable_raw:=true
~/rectified/image	sensor_msgs/Image	bgr8	enable_rectified (default on)
~/diff/image	sensor_msgs/Image	32FC1 or bgr8	enable_diff:=true
~/camera_info	sensor_msgs/CameraInfo	—	always

Diff stream modes

diff_mode	SDK mode	Description
single	SingleInference	Reference frame is inferred once at startup.
continuous	PerFrameInference	Reference frame is inferred on every frame.

Stream dependencies

Enabling diff automatically adds the upstream rectified stream:

enable_raw               → Raw
enable_rectified         → Rectified
enable_diff              → Rectified + Diff

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Parameters

See xense_camera/config/xense_params.yaml for the full list with descriptions.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
device_serial	string	""	Sensor serial (empty = auto-detect)
device_index	int	-1	V4L2 index (-1 = auto-detect)
enable_raw	bool	false	Publish raw camera frames
enable_rectified	bool	true	Publish rectified frames
enable_diff	bool	false	Publish difference image on ~/diff/image
diff_mode	string	single	single or continuous
inference_backend	string	Auto	Inference backend (Auto, CPU, ONNX, MIGraphX, …)
use_gpu	bool	true	Use GPU for inference
camera_frame_id	string	xense_camera_link	TF frame ID
publish_tf	bool	true	Publish world→camera static TF

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Custom Messages (xense_msgs)

Stub definitions for future marker and force streaming support:

• xense_msgs/ForceVector — 3D force vector with magnitude
• xense_msgs/ForceArray — Stamped array of force vectors + resultant
• xense_msgs/MarkerArray2D — Stamped 2D marker grid positions
• xense_msgs/MarkerArray3D — Stamped 3D marker grid positions

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License

Apache-2.0