lidar-imu-calib-docker

A ROS repository that performs Lidar-IMU calibration using a modified version of APRIL Lab's lidar_IMU_calib repository. The outline of this repository is taken from orb-slam-16833 and 16833_superodom. This repository contains the Dockerfile that downloads dependencies needed for the modified lidar_IMU_calib repository and serves as a wrapper repository.

Made for the MMPUG project at the CMU Biorobotics Lab. Tested only with Ubuntu. If your device has an Nvidia GPU, see the nvidia-gpu branch.

Prerequesites

Docker

Cloning Repositories

Clone this repository and our modified lidar_IMU_calib repository with the following commands.

git clone git@github.com:vichan7/lidar-imu-calib-docker.git
cd lidar-imu-calib-docker/ws/ros_ws/src
git clone git@github.com:vichan7/lidar_IMU_calib.git

Building Docker Image and Container

Starting from the lidar-imu-calib-docker directory, build the docker image.

cd docker
docker compose build

Run the docker image with

export HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME
docker compose up

Once the environment setup is successful, press Ctrl C to exit the container gracefully. Start and run the container.

docker start lidar_jay_ros
docker exec -it lidar_jay_ros bash

Running lidar_IMU_calib

Once inside the docker container, run the setup script for calibration.

cd lidar_jay_ws/ros_ws/src
bash ./setupcalib.sh

Run the GUI using the following command. Note the topic names in calib.sh and licalib_gui.launch are formatted to work with bags that MMPUG produces, and may need to be changed to run other datasets.

cd lidar_IMU_calib
./calib.sh

Once the GUI runs...

Details of the calibration process are in the README of APRIL Lab's lidar_IMU_calib, but here are some takeaways we got from using it.

• Follow steps in lidar_IMU_calib README
  • Can see in terminal when each step is done running
• Can’t run multiple steps at the same time
• Running multiple rosbags:
  • After the first bag runs, quit the GUI (Ctrl C in terminal) and the next bag will start running

Adding New Data

• When importing new bag files, add them to ros_ws/li_data_calib
• In ros_ws/src/lidar_IMU_calib/calib.sh replace the names of the bags
• Change the topic names in calib.sh and licalib_gui.launch to match the format of the bag you want to use
• Saved maps can be found in ros_ws/li_data_calib under a folder that shares a name with the .bag file

Common Errors

• Don't forget to run catkin_make in ros_ws after changing C++ code
• If you get a BagFormatException, try reindexing the rosbag with the command rosbag reindex <bag_name>.bag