Here a list of our software contributions, along with public code repositories and publications and where available.

All software is stored in our GitHub iralabdisco channel.

Ira Laser Tools

Laserscan merger

This tool allows to easily and dynamically (rqt_reconfigure) merge multiple, same time, single scanning plane, laser scans into a single one; this is very useful for using applications like gmapping, amcl, pamcl on vehicles with multiple single scanning plane laser scanners, as these applications require just one laser scan as input. The scanning planes need to be approximately the same. The resulting scan will appear generated from a single scanner dis-regarding actual occlusions as seen from the merged scans; for instance, consider the case of 2 scanners mounted on the 2 front corners A and B of a rectangular vehicle (we live in 2D); each scanner gives out a 270degs scan, from along the long side of the vehicle going backward to toward the other scanner. The merged scan will appear as generated from a virtual scanner positioned in C, halfway A and B, and measuring the same measures of the merges scans, irregardless of the occlusions that would apply to a real scanner positioned in C.

Laserscan virtualizer

This tool allows to easily and dynamically (rqt_reconfifure) generate virtual laser scans from a pointcloud such as the one generated by a multiple scanning plane laser scanner, e.g., a velodyne scanner). The only requirement is the rototranslation between the virtual laser scanner and the base frame to be known to TF.

Citation (BibTex):  
@article{ballardini2014ira_laser_tools,
  title={ira\_laser\_tools: a ROS LaserScan manipulation toolbox},
  author={Ballardini, Augusto Luis and Fontana, Simone and Furlan, Axel and Sorrenti, Domenico G},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.1086},
  year={2014}
}
Publication: http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.1086
Software Repository: https://github.com/iralabdisco/ira_laser_tools

Kitti Player

This node aims to play the KITTI velodyne and odometry data into ROS. This repository is a catkin upgrade from the original work by Francesco Sacchi.

Citation (BibTex): 
Publication: 
Software Repository: https://github.com/iralabdisco/kitti_player

ROS Photonphocus Driver

ROS device driver for PhotonFocus cameras based on Pleora’s eBUS™ Software Development Kit (SDK)

Citation (BibTex): 
Publication: 
Software Repository: https://github.com/iralabdisco/ira_photonfocus_driver