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With the current navigation stack, you have to either convert to PointCloud, PointCloud2, or LaserScan (I would avoid PointCloud as that message might go away some day and is superceded by PointCloud).

The sensor_msgs/Range message is actually fairly new, and while you could certainly go add that capability to the navigation stack, you would have to edit the costmap_2d, possibly AMCL, etc, and so it is more straightforward to just write a node that creates a laserscan out of your sensor data.

Note however, that you may actually want to interpolate in between your range finders or tune the costmap grid size, otherwise you may have serious issues clearing the costmap if you don't have enough other sensors on the robot.