YDLIDAR GS5 Focus on Lidar Sensor User Manual
YDLIDARGS5 LIDAR DEVELOPMENTKIT
The development kit of YDLIDAR GS5 lidar (hereinafter referred to as GS5) is an accessory tool provided for performance evaluation and early development of the GS5. Through the GS5 development kit, and with the evaluation software, users can observe point cloud data scanned by GS5 on your environment or development on the SDK.
Development Kit
The GS5 development kit has the following components:
GS5 LiDAR
USB Type-C Cable
USB Adapter Board
FIG 1 YDLIDAR GS5 DEVELOPMENT KIT
CHART 1 YDLIDAR GS5 LIDAR DEVELOPMENT KIT DESCRIPTION
| Item | Qty. | Description |
| GS5 lidar | 1 | Standard version of the GS5 lidar. |
| USB Type-C Cable | 1 | Use with USB adapter board to connect GS5 and PC. USB cable is both a power supply cable and a data cable |
| LiDAR Extension | Connect the GS5 to the USB adapter Both power supply cable and data cable | |
| USB Adapter Board | 1 | Realize the function of USB to UART, which is convenient for the fast interconnection between GS5 and PC |
Note: USB Adapter board has two USB TYPE C interface: USB_DATA, USB_PWR.
USB_DATA: Data powered interface. In most cases, this interface can be used to meet power and communication requirements.
USB_PWR : Auxiliary power supply interface. The USB interface of some development platforms has weak current drive capability. At this time, auxiliary power supply can be used.
USAGE UNDER WINDOWS
Device Connection
‘When evaluating and developing GS5 under windows, GS5 and PC needed to be connected.
The specific process is as follows:
FIG 2 YDLIDAR GS5 DEVICE CONNECTION
Connect the adapter board with GSS5 first, then connect the USB cable to the USB port of the adapter board and the PC. Note that the Type-C interface of the USB cable is connected to the USB_DATA of the USB adapter board.
The drive current of USB interface of some development platforms or PC is not sufficient. GS5 need to be connected to the auxiliary power supply of +5V, otherwise the lidar will be abnormal.
FIG 3 YDLIDAR GS5 AUXILIARY POWER SUPPLY
Driver Installation
To evaluate and develop the GS5 under Windows, the serial port driver of the USB adapter
board. The USB adapter board need to be installed of this kit adopts CP2102 chip to realize serial
port (UART) to USB signal conversion. Its driver can be downloaded from our official website or
downloaded from the official website of Silicon Labs.
https://www.ydlidar.com/dowfile. htm1?id=97
http://cn.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vep-drivers
After unzip the driver package, run the CP2102’s Windows driver installation file (exe file under CP210x_VCP_Windows). Please select the 32-bit version (x86) or 64-bit version (x64) installation program according to the version of the windows operating system. 
FIG 4 YDLIDAR GS5 DRIVER VERSION SELECTION
Double-click the exe file and follow the prompts to install it. 
FIG 5 YDLIDAR GS5 DRIVER INSTALLING
After the installation is complete, right-click on [My Computer] and select [Properties]. On the open [System] screen, select [Device Manager] from the left menu to access the [Device Manager].
Expand [Port] to see the serial port name corresponding to the identified USB adapter, that is, the driver installation is successful. The following figure shows COM3. (Note that the port must be checked in case of GS5 and PC interconnection).
FIG 6 YDLIDAR GS5 DRIVER INSTALLATION CHECK
Evaluation Software Usage
YDLIDAR provides Point Cloud Viewer, a point cloud data visualization software EaiLidarTest.exe for GS5 real-time scanning. Users can intuitively observe the GS5 scanning effect chart. GDL real- time point cloud data and real-time scanning frequency are provided on YDLIDAR.
At the same time, save the scanned data offline to an external file for further analysis.
Before using the YDLIDAR software, make sure that the GS5 USB adapter board serial port driver is installed successfully, and interconnect the GS5 with the USB port of the PC. Run the evaluation software: EaiLidarTest.exe.exe, select the corresponding serial port number and model number. Meanwhile, users could choose language on the top right corner.
If the connection is correct, users will see the following screen:
FIG 8 POINTCLOUD VIEWER INTERFACE
Start Scanning
Click “Strat” to start scanning and display the environment point cloud, the upper left corner displays the angle & distance information of the red line position (unit: mm). Click “Stop” to stop it. as shown below:
FIG 9 LIDAR SCANNING POINT CLOUD DISPLAY
Data Storage
During lidar scanning, click -~ in the Bottom right corner of the main window, select “Export data/Export data (sorted by angle)”, and save point cloud data according to the prompts. Then the system will save the point cloud information scanned in a circle.
FIG 10 SAVE DATA
Display Average and Standard Deviation
The standard deviation and average are displayed on the upper left of the single interface.
FIG 11 YDLIDAR GS5 DISPLAY MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION
Choose one according to needs, move the mouse to the test position, right-click the pop-up menu, and select [Lock Mouse Tracking].
Split Screen
Right-click the pop-up menu and select [Split Screen Display] to display up to 3 GS5 cascaded point cloud data.
Note: For more functions of EaiLidarTest.exe, please click [Help], select [More Information], and learn more about how to use it.
LINUXROS OPERATION
There are many Linux versions, this article only uses Ubuntu 18.04, Melodic version ROS as an example.
Device Connection
Under Linux, the GS5 and PC interconnect processes are consistent with those under Windows.
See Device Connection.
Compile and Install YDlidar-SDK
SDK Compilation
In the SDK directory, run the following command to compile the project:
Run the SDK Samples
In the build folder, run ydlidar_test:
It can be seen the following SDK Scanning information:
The use of ROS under Ubuntu
The Ros driver package is under development.
CAUTION
Ambient Temperature
When the working environment temperature of GSS is over high or over low, it will affect the accuracy of the distance measuring system. It may also damage the structure of the scanning system and reduce the service life of the GS5 lidar. Avoid using in high temperature (>50 degrees Celsius) and low temperature (<0 degrees Celsius) conditions.
Ambient Lighting
The ideal working environment of GSS is indoor, and the indoor environment light (including no light) will not affect the work of GS5. However, please avoid using strong light sources (such as high-power lasers) to directly illuminate the GS5 vision system.
If the users need to use it outdoors, please avoid the GS5’s vision system directly facing the sun, which may cause permanent damage to the vision system’s photosensitive chip, which will invalidate the range finding.
The GSS5 standard version will cause interference in the distance measurement under the conditions of strong sunlight reflection outdoors, please pay attention to it.
Power Supply
During the development process, since the drive current of the USB interface of each platform or the USB interface of the computer may be too low to drive the GSS5, the external power supply of the +5V to the GSS5 needs to be provided through the USB_PWR interface of the USB interface board. It is not recommended for use mobile phone power bank because the voltage ripple of power bank is too large.
REVISE
| Date | Version | Content |
| 2024-11-10 | 1.0 | The 1st release |
Documents / Resources
 |
YDLIDAR GS5 Focus on Lidar Sensor [pdf] User Manual GS5, GS5 Focus on Lidar Sensor, Focus on Lidar Sensor, Lidar Sensor, Sensor |
