Using non-supported hardware in a ROS system
I'm trying to integrate a small radiation detector into a robot's sensory system, and am very new to both ROS (indigo) and Linux (Ubuntu 14.04).
The detector came with files and folders (containing various CMakeLists, .cpp, and .h files) I used to build the device driver for it so that it could work on a Linux system. It has a driver module (.ko file) and its own library (.so file); all I did to compile the library was use "cmake" while in its main folder, "make install" to install the driver module while in the driver module file, and then added a rule in /etc/udev/rules.d to disconnect it from the standard USB driver and connect it to the driver I installed.
I would like to be able to use the data coming from the detector in a ROS system, which I think means that it just needs to be able to publish on a ROS topic. The question I have is: what would be the easiest/smartest way to go about making this happen?
I have heard I could write a ROS wrapper for the device and include it as a node in some sensory package, and I have heard I can just write a script that includes roscpp and run a loop to publish incoming data. If this is too general a question, or if more information is needed to provide an answer, let me know and I'll gladly try to accommodate. Any help would be much appreciated!
