LiDAR API Documentation

This description covers all possibilities to work with the following sensors.

• multiScan100 family
• picoScan100 family

... you have your sensor on hand: Kick start here 🚀

Table of content

• Table of content
• Introduction
• General information
  • Drivers and SDKs
  • Examples
  • Default IP address
• Measurement Data Streaming - Comparison and choice
• Device configuration - Comparison and choice
• Getting started to work with a sensor
  • 0️⃣ Prerequisites
  • 1️⃣ See scan data on sensor web server
  • 2️⃣ Decide how you want to work with the device
• FAQ
  • I can not connect to my sensor?
• Glossary
  • TCP
  • UDP
  • HTTP
  • REST
  • OpenAPI

Introduction

The LiDAR API documentation differentiates between two communication concepts. For both cases there are multiple ways to work with the sensor.

1. Receive event-driven measurement data streaming

• Compact
• MSGPACK

Communication concept of measurement data streaming:

sequenceDiagram
    client->>sensor: enable measurement data streaming
    sensor-->>client: acknowledge measurement data streaming
    client->>sensor: measurement data packet [0]
    client->>sensor: measurement data packet [1]
    client->>sensor: measurement data packet [...]

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2. Read or write sensor parameters

• REST
• CoLa A
• CoLa B

Communication concept of sensor configuration:

sequenceDiagram
    client->>sensor: set parameter1
    sensor-->>client: acknowledge parameter1
    client->>sensor: set parameter2
    sensor-->>client: acknowledge parameter2
    client->>sensor: ...

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General information

Drivers and SDKs

For complete drivers instead of single telegrams, the following options are available:

• ROS drivers
• ROS2 drivers
• Python drivers
• C++ drivers

Default IP address

The default IP address for the sensors (if not specified different is 192.168.0.1)

Measurement Data Streaming - Comparison and choice

	Transport Layer	Port	Advantages	Bandwidth factor
Compact	UDP	default is port 2115	- smallest traffic - best fit for PLCs	1
MSGPACK	UDP	default is port 2115	- available libraries in almost all programming languages	~2

Device configuration - Comparison and choice

	Transport Layer	Port	When to use what
REST	TCP	80	- if you only want to read data - if your system can handle a challenge and response process
CoLa A	TCP	default is port 2111	- if your system cannot handle a challenge and response process
CoLa B	TCP	default is port 2112	- if your system cannot handle a challenge and response process - it is the best fit for PLCs.

Getting started to work with a sensor

0️⃣ Prerequisites

✔️ SICK sensor (e.g. multiScan100)

✔️ Power cable

✔️ Ethernet cable to connect the sensor to your system

1️⃣ See scan data on sensor web server

• Power the sensor
• Connect the sensor to your system. (FAQ: I can not connect to my sensor? Any ideas?)
• Open the sensor web browser (default ip address: http://192.168.0.1/)

2️⃣ Decide how you want to work with the device

• Case 1: You want to test the device and change some settings with the given web browser.
  • You are ready to got and do not need any further actions.
• Case 2: You want to integrate the device into a ROS environement (ROS / ROS2)
  • Please refer to our ROS drivers.
• Case 3: You want to use an existing driver (C++ or Python)
  • Please refer to our C++ / Python driver.
• Case 4: You want to build your own driver in specidic programming language.
  • Decide which measurement data straming approach you want you use. You can choose from these:
    • Compact Format via UDP
    • MSGPACK Format via UDP
  • Decide which sensor configuration approach you want you use. You can choose from these:
    • HTTP/REST via TCP
    • CoLa via TCP

FAQ

I can not connect to my sensor?

Make sure your sensor and client system is in the same subnet. You want to either change the subnet of your ethernet interface or you want to change the IP address of the sensor.

Change subnet of client system

You want make sure

NOTE It's important to note that changes the IP address on your computer may affect your ability to connect to other sensors on your network or access the internet.

Windows To change the IP address on a Windows computer, you can follow these steps:

• Open the Start menu and search for "Control Panel."
• Click on "Network and Sharing Center" in the Control Panel.

Glossary

TCP

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a transport-layer protocol used to establish and maintain connections between devices on a network. It is responsible for ensuring that data is transmitted reliably and in the correct order, by using a system of acknowledgements and retransmissions.

UDP

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a transport-layer protocol used for communication in a computer network. It is a connectionless protocol, meaning that it does not establish a dedicated connection before sending data, unlike TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). This makes UDP faster and more efficient, but also less reliable because there is no built-in mechanism for error checking and retransmission of lost packets.

HTTP

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application-layer protocol that is used to transmit data over the internet. It is the foundation of the web, and is used by browsers to request and receive information from web servers. HTTP defines a set of request methods, such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, which are used to indicate the desired action to be performed on a specified resource.

REST

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for building web services. It is based on the principles of HTTP and is designed to work with the existing infrastructure of the web. RESTful web services use HTTP methods to indicate the desired action to be performed on a specified resource, and return data in a format that can be easily consumed by a client, such as JSON or XML.

OpenAPI

OpenAPI is a specification for building RESTful web services. It is used to describe the structure and behavior of an API (Application Programming Interface), including the available endpoints, the request and response formats, and the authentication methods. OpenAPI is a machine-readable format, which means that tools can be used to generate client libraries, documentation, and other artifacts based on the specification. This makes it easy for developers to understand and interact with an API, and also helps ensure consistency across different implementations.