Turtlebot calibration with Hokuyo laser?

answered 2011-11-30 09:43:51 -0500

13902 ●59 ●157 ●196 http://www.robotandchisel.com

The issue with calibration failing is probably due to the algorithm used to convert the scan of a wall to an angular measurement. On the Kinect, the field of view is very small (about 57 degrees wide), whereas your Hokuyo probably sees 180 degrees. Given that, your calculation for wall angle is seriously disturbed, since it uses all the scans. I'd suggest using dynamic_reconfigure to reduce the scan angle of the Hokuyo to about 60 degrees before calibration (you can use the full scan later on for map making).

edit flag offensive delete link

Comments

Thanks Fergs--I'll give it a try over the next couple of days and post back my results. In the meantime, I heavily edited the original question to leave just the essential part. (Thanks Asomerville :-))

Pi Robot ( 2011-12-01 01:51:45 -0500 )edit

Success! Following Fergs' suggestion, I set the Hokuyo to scan -0.5 to 0.5 radians (almost exactly 57 degrees). Then, in the TurtleBot calibrate.launch file, I set the min_angle and max_angle parameters also to -0.5 and -0.5 instead of the default -0.3 and 0.3. After calibrating a few times until convergence, I was able to get a decent map of my living room / dining room using the laser_gmapping_demo.

Pi Robot ( 2011-12-02 01:03:33 -0500 )edit

Great! Please file a ticket so that we don't forget this and can get a real fix into a future release.