In this project I interface a low cost, high performance LiDAR sensor with the Robot Operating System (ROS) and use OpenCV to give users visual confirmation of obstacle detection.
The LiDAR module used is the Teraranger One by Teraranger.
I am personally running Ubuntu 14.04 on a VMware virtual machine. It is recommended you use this version along with the ROS version I will use since these are both software versions that offer long term support and thus provided more documentation and less confusion.
Once you have your OS set up it is time to install the Robot Operating System (ROS)
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Step 3
I am using ROS Indigo (release versions are in alphabetical order).
ROS Indigo is the long term support release of the Robot Operating System frame work.
To install, follow these instructions. They are very thorough and offer trouble shooting solutions (to re-create them here would not do them justice).