Slamtec RPLIDAR A2 Now Available for FRC Teams

[marshall]

Ladies and gentleman,

It is with great pleasure that I get to announce another cool product available to FRC Teams this year from a company called Slamtec based in Shanghai China.



The RPLIDAR A2 Scanning LIDAR sensor:



http://www.slamtec.com/en

The cost was just outside of the price range for FRC Teams ($450) but Slamtec has generously agreed to lower the price to within the price range for ALL FRC teams globally (I'm not advertising the lower price here but it's under the limit for FRC parts). To obtain the discount, send an email to sales@slamtec.com. They will work with you on how you can obtain the product.

But wait! There's more! Not only is the RPLIDAR A2 now within the price range for FRC teams, so is their SLAMWARE SDPmini system for automatic localization and mapping. They have agreed to reduce the cost of it so it is also available to FRC team's everywhere. Again, contact sales@slamtec.com if you are interested.

Also, I don't know the FRC teams in China but I'm willing to bet someone on here does and based on my conversations with Slamtec's sales people, we need to make the connection happen because the Slamtec folks are a prime company to get onboard with FRC in China. They are enthusiastic and thrilled to be helping out FRC teams around the globe with their products and I know they would support their local teams too!

Also worth saying a mighty big THANK YOU to all the folks at FIRST who saw the light and made scanning LIDAR systems legal this year with the amendment to R32. These systems had not been legal in the past as Team 900 has been asking about them for years (Q71 from 2015).

[SamCarlberg]

Freaking awesome

[marshall]

Originally Posted by SamCarlberg

Freaking awesome

[sparkytwd]

Does anyone have experience using this at an actual competition field? I'm concerned about how well it will image stuff like the reflective diamond plate and plexiglass barriers.

A technical paper I found on forensic scene imaging using LIDAR pointed out substantial issues with mirror like surfaces, so I've been somewhat hesitant to grab one of these.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by sparkytwd

Does anyone have experience using this at an actual competition field? I'm concerned about how well it will image stuff like the reflective diamond plate and plexiglass barriers.

A technical paper I found on forensic scene imaging using LIDAR pointed out substantial issues with mirror like surfaces, so I've been somewhat hesitant to grab one of these.

It's the first year these have been legal so it's a fair question but our prior testing showed similar issues. We'll likely know more after this season.

[EmileH]

Originally Posted by marshall

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to marshall again.

'Nuff said.

[Joe Ross]

Has anyone compared the specs with the scanse sweep?

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Has anyone compared the specs with the scanse sweep?

Here is a link to the Scanse sold by Armabot for $349 (Armabot is a new sponsor for FIRST... they provided a coupon for a 755 encoder in the kit of parts. They also have the Scanse...

https://www.armabot.com/collections/...idar-by-scanse

[Andrew Duerner]

Reading through the datasheet on the RPLIDAR it was very interesting what they made. Even though the RPLIDAR looks very similar on the outside to the Scanse Sweep, they work in very different ways.

From what I understand RPLIDAR images a laser spot with an imagery array and uses triangulation to determine the range. This method is usually associated with laser range finding, but I haven't seen it on a rotating head before.

The Sweep uses a time of flight method where it sends out a pulse coded laser signal and looks for that signal in a detector return (the code is to help pick out the signal in the background noise). Based on how long it took for the pulse to go out and return, that length of time and the speed of light determines how far away the object is.

It can be very difficult to compare range performance (distance and accuracy) because of details of the test can dramatically impact results. Particularly the target type is very important, its albedo, reflectance, angle of incidence, size, all come into play.

What would be really neat to see, recorded side by side data collection in FRC match play between these two sensors. Added video of the match (preferably from an overhead top view) would help in identifying what the detected objects are. Any teams have the manpower to take this on?

Have a great build season!