Popular robotics sensors such as the Hokuyo laser range finder have a USB interface. Plugging in the sensor will normally cause Ubuntu to set up USB communication via the /dev/ttyACM0 port which allows the sensor to interface with the OS, provided the correct permissions are set. The official hokuyo_node ROS package recommends using the following …Read more Consistent USB sensor device naming
Hacks
Secretly searching for a domain name
Have you ever searched for a domain name, discovered it was available, only to see it vanish (or drastically increase in price) a couple of hours later as you were about to buy it? Registering a domain can unexpectedly turn into a frustrating game of cat and mouse. This is mainly due to a practice…Read more Secretly searching for a domain name
Converting the KITTI dataset to rosbags
The KITTI Vision Benchmark Suite dataset is a popular robotics dataset from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago. Several benchmarking datasets are provided including stereo, flow, scene flow, depth, odomerty, object, tracking, road, semantics and the raw data. To use this dataset in ROS, the streams should first be converted to…Read more Converting the KITTI dataset to rosbags
Useful tools and hacks
A collection of useful tools and hacks I've come across recently (list updated): Resetting an administrative password in Ubuntu It is possible to reset an administrative password you forgot, provided you have access to the physical machine (this is obviously a security measure). To reset simply restart the machine and on the GNU GRUB screen…Read more Useful tools and hacks
Robotics. And other stuff too. 