Problem using a lidar sensor in gazebo

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Hello,

I am new to ROS and I am using ROS Kinetic. So far I have found a URDF code for a hokuyo laser sensor, which I would like to use for simulations and I have put it on my robot:

 <link name="hokuyo_link">
    <collision>
      <origin xyz="0 0 0" rpy="0 0 0"/>
      <geometry>
        <box size="0.15 0.15 0.15"/>
      </geometry>
    </collision>

    <visual>
      <origin xyz="0 0 0" rpy="0 0 0"/>
      <geometry>
        <mesh filename="package://labrob_description/meshes/hokuyo.dae"/>
      </geometry>
    </visual>

    <inertial>
      <mass value="1e-5" />
      <origin xyz="0 0 0" rpy="0 0 0"/>
      <inertia ixx="1e-6" ixy="0" ixz="0" iyy="1e-6" iyz="0" izz="1e-6" />
    </inertial>
  </link>

  <property name="hokuyo_link" value="0.15" />
  <joint name="hokuyo_joint" type="fixed">
    <axis xyz="0 1 0" />
    <origin xyz="0.425 0 0.15" rpy="0 0 0"/>
    <parent link="base_link"/>
    <child link="hokuyo_link"/>
  </joint>

  <!-- hokuyo -->
  <gazebo reference="hokuyo_link">
    <sensor type="gpu_ray" name="head_hokuyo_sensor">
      <pose>0 0 0 0 0 0</pose>
      <visualize>false</visualize>
      <update_rate>40</update_rate>
      <ray>
        <scan>
          <horizontal>
            <samples>720</samples>
            <resolution>1</resolution>
            <min_angle>-1.570796</min_angle>
            <max_angle>1.570796</max_angle>
          </horizontal>
        </scan>
        <range>
          <min>0.10</min>
          <max>30.0</max>
          <resolution>0.01</resolution>
        </range>
        <noise>
          <type>gaussian</type>
          <!-- Noise parameters based on published spec for Hokuyo laser
               achieving "+-30mm" accuracy at range < 10m.  A mean of 0.0m and
               stddev of 0.01m will put 99.7% of samples within 0.03m of the true
               reading. -->
          <mean>0.0</mean>
          <stddev>0.01</stddev>
        </noise>
      </ray>
      <plugin name="gazebo_ros_head_hokuyo_controller" filename="libgazebo_ros_gpu_laser.so">
        <topicName>/labrob/laser/scan</topicName>
        <frameName>hokuyo_link</frameName>
      </plugin>
    </sensor>
  </gazebo>

I can successfully roslaunch the robot with the sensor in gazebo and see that the /labrob/laser/scan topic is being used from the sensor. I have tried adding objects really close to the sensor (tables for example), but I get the same data as when the sensor is in an empty world. The data which are being published on the topic are the following:

header: 
  seq: 37775
  stamp: 
    secs: 1156
    nsecs: 736000000
  frame_id: hokuyo_link
angle_min: -1.57079994678
angle_max: 1.57079994678
angle_increment: 0.00436940183863
time_increment: 0.0
scan_time: 0.0
range_min: 0.10000000149
range_max: 30.0
ranges: [-inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf, -inf ...