YDLIDAR X4 User manual

文档编码：01.13.000008
YDLIDAR X4
USER MANUAL
Doc#：01.13.000003

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CONTENTS
YDLIDAR x4 Development Kit ..........................................................................................................2
Development Kit............................................................................................................................2
Windows Usage guide......................................................................................................................3
Device connection.........................................................................................................................3
Driver Installation ..........................................................................................................................4
Evaluation software.......................................................................................................................5
Linux ROS operation ........................................................................................................................7
File description..............................................................................................................................7
Configuration instructions..............................................................................................................8
Device connection.........................................................................................................................9
ROS Driver Installation..................................................................................................................9
RVIZ installation............................................................................................................................9
RVIZ Check the scan results.........................................................................................................9
Modify the scan angle problem....................................................................................................10
Use caution.....................................................................................................................................11
Temperature ...............................................................................................................................11
Ambient lighting...........................................................................................................................11
Power demand............................................................................................................................11

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YDLIDAR X4 DEVELOPMENT KIT
The YDLIDAR X4 (hereafter abbreviated as X4) development kit is designed to facilitate users'
performance evaluation and early development of the X4. By using the X4 development kit and
matching evaluation software, point cloud data scanned by X4 to the environment can be observed
on the PC or developed on the SDK.
Development Kit
The X4 development kit has the following components:
FIG 1 YDLIDAR X4 DEVELOPMENT KIT
CHART 1 YDLIDAR X4 DEVELOPMENT KIT DESCRIPTION
Item
Qty
Description
X4 Lidar
1
Standard version of the X4 Lidar. The X4 has an integrated motor drive for motor
control.
USB cable
1
Use with USB adapter board to connect X4 and PC.
It is both a power supply line and a data line.
USB adapter board
1
This component is used for USB to UART functions, enabling X4 and PC to be
quickly interconnected.
Also supports the serial port DTR signal to the X4 motor stop control.
A MicroUSB Power Interface (PWR) for auxiliary power supply is also provided.
PH2.0-8P cable
1
This component meets the user's development needs in a multi-platform
environment.
Note: USB adapter board has two MicroUSB interfaces: USB_DATA, USB_PWR.
USB_DATA: Data supply multiplex interface. In most cases, just using this interface can meet the power
and communication needs.
USB_PWR: Auxiliary power interface. The USB interface of some development platforms has a weak
current drive capability, and auxiliary power can be used.
YDLIDAR X4 USB cable
USB adapter
board
PH2.0-8P
Cable

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WINDOWS USAGE GUIDE
Device connection
When evaluating and developing X4 under windows, you need to interconnect X4 and PC. The
specific process is as follows:
FIG 2 YDLIDAR X4 CONNECTION STEP 1
FIG 3 YDLIDAR X4 CONNECTION STEP 2
Connect the adapter board and X4 first, and then connect the USB cable to the USB port on the
adapter board and the PC. Note that the USB interface's Micro interface is connected to the USB
adapter's USB_DATA. After the X4 is powered on, it is in idle mode and the motor does not turn.
The drive current of the USB interface of some development platforms or PCs is weak, and the X4
needs to access the +5V auxiliary power supply, otherwise the radar will work abnormally.
FIG 4 YDLIDAR X4 AUXILIARY POWER SUPPLY
5V power supply
PC

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Driver Installation
To evaluate and develop the X4 under Windows, you need to install the serial port driver of the USB
adapter board. The USB adapter board 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:
http://ydlidar.com/
http://cn.silabs.com/products/development-tools/software/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers
After extracting 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 5 YDLIDAR X4 DRIVER VERSION SELECTION
Double-click the exe file and follow the prompts to install it
FIG 6 YDLIDAR X4 DRIVER INSTALLATION I
After the installation is complete, you can right-click My Computer and select Properties. Under the
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

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installation is successful. The following figure shows COM3. (Note that the port must be checked in
case of X4 and PC interconnection)
FIG 7 YDLIDAR X4 DRIVE INSTALLATION II
Evaluation software
YDLIDAR provides Point Cloud Viewer, a point cloud data visualization software for X4 real-time
scanning. The user can intuitively observe the X4 scan effect picture using this software. YDLIDAR
provides X4 real-time point cloud data and real-time scanning frequency, and X4 version
information can be read at the same time. And can save the scan data offline to an external file for
further analysis.
Before using YDLIDAR, make sure that the X4 USB adapter board serial port driver is installed
successfully, and check whether the X4 and PC USB ports are successfully interconnected. Run the
evaluation software: PointCloudViewer.exe, select the corresponding serial port number and model
number.
FIG 8 YDLIDAR X4 EVALUATION SOFTWARE

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If the connection is normal, you will see the following screen:
FIG 9 POINTCLOUD VIEWER EVALUATION SOFTWARE STARTUP DISPLAY
The title bar shows the software/hardware version and serial number information for this lidar.
These are menu bars: Available when the icon is blue and unavailable when it is gray.
：Stop scanning: Lidar is in idle mode. In this mode, the lidar's motor is stopped and is in standby
mode.
：Start scanning: Lidar will enter scanning mode. After starting the scan, point cloud data can be
observed on the software interface.
：Save the scan data acquired by X4 to a file for easy viewing and analysis.
Click to start scanning; you can see the point cloud data in the software interface as shown below:

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FIG 10 YDLIDAR X4 EVALUATION SOFTWARE
Move the mouse to any sampling point and you can see the distance value and angle of the point in
the red text. The scanning frequency of the laser radar can be read from the text on the upper right of
the screen.
LINUX ROS OPERATION
Because there are many Linux versions, this article only uses Ubuntu 16.04, Kinetic version ROS as
an example.
File description
Download YDLIDAR's latest ROS driver package at http://www.ydlidar.com/download;
解压后打开 launch 文件夹，该目录下有如下文件:
CHART 2 LAUNCH FILE DESCRIPTION
File
Description
f4.launch
Run the file, F4 Lidar starts scanning, no data, no point cloud display
f4_view.launch
Run the file, Lidar F4 starts scanning and shows the point cloud
g4.launch
Run the file, G4 Lidar starts scanning, no data, no point cloud display
g4_view.launch
Run the file, Lidar G4 starts scanning and shows the point cloud
x4.launch
Run the file, X4 Lidar starts scanning, no data, no point cloud display
x4_view.launch
Run the file, Lidar X4 starts scanning and shows the point cloud
Lidar.launch
Run the file, Lidar (G4, F4 and X4) starts scanning, no data, no point cloud display
Lidar_view.launch
Run the file, Lidar (G4,F4 and X4) starts scanning and shows the point cloud

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Note 1: need to select the correct file to run, for example: X4 cannot run f4_view.launch, you can run
x4_view.launch and Lidar_view.launch;
Note 2: To run Lidar_view.launch and Lidar.launch, you need to confirm that the Lidar.launch configuration
information is correct. See the configuration instructions for details.
Configuration instructions
The X4 configuration file is saved in x4.launch. When modifying the parameters of Lidar.launch,
refer to the configuration in x4.launch. The configuration instructions are as follows:
CHART 3 CONFIGURATION INSTRUCTIONS
File
Description
port
The lidar serial number defaults to ydlidar. When connecting multiple radars, the
serial port will have a duplicate name error.
baudrate
Serial port baud rate: G4 default is: 230400
frame_id
Lidar coordinate system: default is laser_frame
angle_fixed
Lidar Angle Correction Settings: Default is true
intensities
Lidar signal strength settings, G4, X4, F4 fixed to false
angle_min
Lidar scan start angle soft setting: direction defaults to clockwise
angle_max
Lidar scan start angle soft setting: direction defaults to counterclockwise
range_min
Lidar minimum range: default is 0.08
range_max
Lidar maximum range: default is 16.0
ignore_array
Lidar scan angle hard setting: Default is not set. The system uses soft settings by
default
In general, X4 can be configured as below:
FIG 11 X4.LAUNCH DEFAULT SETTING

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Device connection
Under Linux, the X4 and PC interconnect processes are consistent with those under Windows. See
Device Connection under Window.
ROS Driver Installation
Before doing the following, make sure that the Kinetic version ROS environment is installed
correctly.
Specific steps are as follows:
（1）Use the command to create the ydlidar_ws workspace and copy the ROS driver package
ydlidar in the X4 package to the ydlidar_ws/src directory. Switch to the ydlidar_ws
workspace and compile again.
$ mkdir -p ~/ydlidar_ws/src
$ cd ~/ydlidar_ws
$ catkin_make
（2）After the compilation is complete, add the ydlidar environment variable to the ~/.bashrc file
and make it effective.
$ echo "source ~/ydlidar_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
$ source ~/.bashrc
（3）Add a device alias /dev/ydlidar to the X4 serial port.
$ cd ~/ydlidar_ws/src/ydlidar/startup
$ sudo chmod +x initenv.sh
$ sudo sh initenv.sh
RVIZ installation
（1）Online installation
$ sudo apt-get install python-serial ros-kinetic-serial g++ vim \
ros-kinetic-turtlebot-rviz-launchers
（2）If there is a problem with the installation, update the source cache and reinstall it.
$ sudo apt-get update
RVIZ Check the scan results
Run the launch file and open rviz to view the X4 scan results, as shown in the following figure:
$ roslaunch ydlidar x4_view.launch