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Get Started with Velodyne LiDAR Sensor Acquisition

Supported Models

Support has been added for the Velodyne LiDAR® sensor. You can connect to and stream point clouds from the following Velodyne LiDAR models:

  • VLS-128 Alpha Puck sensor

  • VLP-32C Ultra Puck sensor

  • VLP-16 Puck Hi-Res sensor

  • VLP-16 Puck LITE sensor

  • VLP-16 Puck sensor

  • HDL-32E sensor

  • HDL-64E sensor

The lidar support is available through the Lidar Toolbox™ Support Package for Velodyne LiDAR Sensors. You must install the support package to use this feature.

Run Hardware Outside of MATLAB

Before you use the toolbox functionality, make sure that your Velodyne LiDAR hardware is functioning properly outside of MATLAB®.

  1. You can run the application that came with your hardware, VeloView, and verify that you can receive live data.

    Note

    Be sure to close VeloView before trying to create the velodynelidar object.

  2. Use the Velodyne® web interface to make sure that the IP address and port are correct.

  3. Make sure that there is no other application or hardware using the same UDP port that is being used by the Velodyne LiDAR.

Calibration File

To use the support package, you need to create a velodynelidar object. For information on that process, see Create a velodynelidar Object and Use Object Properties.

You should provide a calibration file to use for acquiring accurate point clouds. You can set the CalibrationFile property to assign a calibration file to use when you create the velodynelidar object. The property is the name of the XML file containing Velodyne LiDAR laser calibration data. If you do not specify a calibration file, a default calibration file with data obtained from Velodyne device manuals is chosen.

If an incorrect calibration file for the Velodyne sensor is used, you do not get an error, but an improperly calibrated point cloud is generated. For information about setting the property, see Create a velodynelidar Object and Use Object Properties.

See Also

Related Topics