Revision history [back]

All of the software that I've worked on does sensor health reporting with the diagnostic_updater library. It includes built-in functions to measuring and reporting the topic publish frequency, and reporting diagnostic errors if the publish frequency is too high or too low. It also provides a framework for reporting any other problems you might want to detect.

The only downside is that you must modify your nodes to use it; but generally the modifications are quite easy. Many of the mature ROS camera and laser drivers already incorporate diagnostics like this.