Oculus Driver

Simple C++ driver library for the Blueprint Subsea Oculus sonar.

If interested by the ROS1 or the ROS2 node, please clone one of these repository instead :

• ROS1 : git clone https://github.com/pnarvor/oculus_ros.git
• ROS2 : git clone https://github.com/pnarvor/oculus_ros2.git

Note : this library was only tested on Ubuntu-based systems. Although it was made with cross-compatible tools (Boost library, CMake), don't expect this to work out of the box with other systems.

Compiling and installing the oculus_driver library

Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install -y libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev

Compile the oculus_dirver library

This library follows a standard CMake compilation procedure.

Create a build directory :

mkdir build && cd build

Generate your build system with CMake, compile and install :

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<your install location> ..
make -j4 install

Make sure the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH environment variable contains your install location :

echo $CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH

If not, put this at the end your $HOME/.bashrc file:

export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<your install location>:$CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH

How it works (in brief)

Network configuration

The Oculus sonar connects to the system through the network. The sonar itself has a fixed IP address which may or may not be indicated on the box. To avoid bricking of the sonar by "lack of post-it", the sonar makes himself known on the network by broadcasting its own IP address. The IP address is therefore always retrievable, regardless of your system network configuration.

The oculus_driver library should always detect the IP of a plugged in Oculus sonar and will print it to stdout. If you do not have access to stdout, a tool such as wireshark will display the packets broadcasted by the sonar along with its IP address. The ROS node also publish the sonar configuration in the topic "/oculus_sonar/status", although it might not be in a user readable format (encoded in a uint32_t, for now).

You should make sure your own system configuration match the configuration of the sonar (i.e. your system and the sonar must be on the same subnet). If you are unable to change your own configuration, the IP of the sonar can be changed with the help of the Oculus ViewPoint software (made for Windows, but works with wine on Ubuntu).

General operation (with ROS)

Always make sure the sonar is underwater before powering it !

In normal operation the sonar will continuously send ping. Various ping parameters can be changed (ping signal frequency, ping rate...). The sonar will retain its current configuration between power cycles. This makes very important to not power up the sonar before putting it underwater. It may send pings even if the ROS node is not launched (it should not break right away but will heat up very fast).

If the ROS node is launched, it will stop the ping emission if there are no subscribers on the /oculus_sonar/ping topic.

The ping parameters can be changed using the rqt_reconfigure graphical tool.

rosrun rqt_reconfigure rqt_reconfigure

The sonar might take a lot of time to acknowledge a parameter change (especially parameters related to sound velocity and salinity).

Troubleshooting

Most of the issue you might will encounter are related to network setup. Check the Network configuration section.

For other problems, feel free to contact the maintainer at [email protected].

Acknowledgements

This was inspired from https://github.com/apl-ocean-engineering/liboculus. A similar software by Aaron Marburg from University of Washington.