Common

Overview

Name	Type	Description	Default	Range
sensor_model	string	Sensor model.		Pandar64, Pandar40P, PandarXT32, PandarXT32M, PandarQT64, PandarQT128, Pandar128E4X, PandarAT128
calibration_file	string	Sensor calibration file.	$(find-pkg-share nebula_decoders)/calibration/hesai/$(var sensor_model).csv	N/A
multicast_ip	string	Multicast IPv4 address.	""	N/A
gnss_port	integer	GNSS port.	10110	≥ 0
rotation_speed	integer	Motor RPM, the sensor's internal spin rate.	600	≥ 300 ≤ 1200
ptp_profile	string	PTP profile.	1588v2	1588v2, 802.1as, automotive
ptp_domain	integer	PTP domain (PTP operates within a logical scope).	0	≥ 0 ≤ 127
ptp_transport_type	string	1588v2 supports 'UDP' or 'L2', other profiles only L2 (HW).	UDP	UDP, L2
ptp_switch_type	string	For automotive profile,'TSN' or 'NON_TSN'.	TSN	TSN, NON_TSN
ptp_lock_threshold	integer	The maximum sensor clock offset in microseconds from the master clock which will still be treated as being locked.	100	≥ 1 ≤ 100
sync_angle	integer	The angle in whole degrees which should be hit on top-of-second.	0	≥ 0 ≤ 359
cut_angle	float	The angle in degrees at which pointclouds are cut/published.	0.0	≥ 0 ≤ 360

PTP Settings

Support varies from sensor to sensor, so check the sensor's parameter page for allowed values.

ptp_profile

The PTP version or profile to use. The supported profiles are 1588v2, 802.1as (gPTP), and automotive (AutoSAR Time Synchronization Protocol).

ptp_domain

The domain to separate multiple PTP connections over the same link.

ptp_transport_type

Whether to use UDP or L2. For 802.1as and automotive, only L2 is allowed.

ptp_switch_type

While this is not found in the PTP standards, this influences how often the sensor performs delay measurements. Set this to TSN if your switch supports gPTP or the AutoSAR protocol, and NON_TSN if the switch does not. In the latter case, the sensor will measure more often.

ptp_lock_threshold

Only applies to OT128 and QT128

The maximum difference between the sensor and PTP master that will still be considered locked by the sensor, in microseconds. When this threshold is crossed, the sensor will report its synchronization state to be tracking. Nebula's hardware monitor treats only the locked state as OK, tracking as WARNING and frozen and free run as ERROR.

Scan Cutting and Field of View

Scan cutting influences the time stamps of points and the point cloud headers. The point cloud header time stamp is always the absolute time of the earliest (theoretical) point in the cloud. This means that for different parameter combinations, different timing behaviors are observed:

• cut_angle is within (cloud_min_angle, cloud_max_angle) (both bounds exclusive): the earliest point is the one directly after cut_angle
• cut_angle = cloud_max_angle and the FoV is not 360 deg: the earliest point is at cloud_min_angle

Depending on whether cut_angle and sync_angle are aligned, the point cloud time stamp will be somewhere in [ToS, ToS + 100 ms) assuming a 10 Hz LiDAR.

The below figure illustrates the various angles at play. Solid lines represent corrected angles, while dotted ones represent encoder angles. Note that a range of encoder angles can contribute points to the same corrected angle: each channel can have a different azimuth correction term. The upper bounds of these areas of influence are shown in orange and are auto-calculated by Nebula.

Note

The parts of the correction ranges that are outside of the (corrected) FoV also need to be captured by the sensor as they contribute points to regions within the FoV. Nebula automatically sets the sensor's FoV settings to an oversized range compared to the desired corrected FoV.

The two examples shown below illustrate the behavior of a cut_angle inside the FoV (left) and one that coincides with the cloud_max_angle. Scans are always published on cut_angle, so the timestamp has a jump from 100 ms to 0 ms in the left scan: the points near 0 ms were inserted into the scan first, while those near 100 ms were inserted at the end of the scan.

The example on the right has timestamps ranging from 0 ms at 90 deg, and 62.5 ms at 315 deg. The cloud is published at 315 deg, but the timestamp is reset at 90 deg, resulting in a range of point times much less than 100 ms. See the table below for the exact parameters used in this figure.

Note

Setting cut_angle = cloud_max_angle for non-360 deg FoVs results in the cloud being published right at the end of the FoV, meaning that there is 0 latency where the decoder has to wait for points to arrive. In comparison, when cutting somewhere inside the FoV, the decoder has to wait after cloud_max_angle has been passed until the FoV is entered again at cloud_min_angle to complete the scan, resulting in a latency from first point to scan publication of 100 ms.

In general, the scan latency (from the time of the first point until publication) can be expressed as L = (cloud_max_angle - cloud_min_angle) / 360 * 1000 ms / framerate where w.l.o.g. cloud_max_angle >= cloud_min_angle.

Examples:

The last two rows correspond to the examples in the above figure.

cloud_min_angle	cloud_max_angle	cut_angle	sync_angle	Scan timestamp	Scan latency
0	360	0	0	ToS	100 ms
0	180	0	0	ToS	100 ms
0	360	180	0	ToS + 50 ms	100 ms
90	360	360	0	ToS + 25 ms	75 ms
90	315	180	30	ToS + 17 ms	100 ms
90	315	315	30	ToS + 17 ms	63 ms

cloud_min_angle and cloud_max_angle

The start and end angle of the desired field of view (FoV), in degrees. For the full FoV for 360 deg LiDARs, set these to 0 and 360. The angles can also be set such that the 360->0 bound is crossed, e.g. 270 and 90.

Internally, the sensor handles angle correction effects and sets the hardware parameters with a computed margin to account for them. The output pointcloud will have exactly the FoV angles set in these parameters.

sync_angle

The encoder angle of the sensor which will be passed at top-of-second (ToS). This is the time where the timestamp will roll over to 0, e.g. X.X0000... s for a 10 Hz frame rate.

cut_angle

The corrected angle at which one point cloud ends and the next one starts. This angle has to be in the range (cloud_min_angle, cloud_max_angle], except for a 360 deg FoV, where the angle has to be [0, 360).