Radar Topics
The radar topics are managed by the radarpub service and handles interfacing with a connected radar to produce radar point clouds and radar cubes. The service can also stack successive radar points and cluster radar points based on their proximity to each other. The following is a list of key features provided by the radar service.
- SmartMicro Radars
- Output raw Radarcube
- DBScan clustering of radar points
The radars topics are published under the /radar namespace and offers the following sub-topics: /radar/targets, /radar/clusters, /radar/cube, and /radar/info. Clustering parameters are configurable through the radarpub service. See radarpub service configuration documentation for details.
/radar/info
The /radar/info topic publishes information about the current radar configuration. It describes the state of the center frequency, frequency sweep, range toggle, and detection frequency of the radar.
/radar/targets
The /radar/targets topic publishes information about the received radar points using the PointCloud2 schema. The point cloud will have the fields x, y, z, speed, power, and rcs (radar cross section), all with the Float32 datatype.
| Field Name | Datatype | Units | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| x | float32 | m | Represent XYZ location of the point |
| y | float32 | m | Represent XYZ location of the point |
| z | float32 | m | Represent XYZ location of the point |
| speed | float32 | m/s | Only measures speed towards or away from the radar |
| power | float32 | ||
| rcs | float32 | Radar cross section |
The XYZ coordinate system follows the standard ROS convention of x forward, y left, z up.
| Usage | Link |
|---|---|
| WebUI | |
| Foxglove | |
| SDK | Radar Targets Example |
/radar/clusters
The /radar/clusters topic publishes information about the received radar points using the PointCloud2 schema. The point cloud will have the fields x, y, z, speed, power, rcs (radar cross section), and cluster_id.
| Field Name | Datatype | Units | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| x | float32 | m | Represent XYZ location of the point |
| y | float32 | m | Represent XYZ location of the point |
| z | float32 | m | Represent XYZ location of the point |
| speed | float32 | m/s | Only measures speed towards or away from the radar |
| power | float32 | ||
| rcs | float32 | Radar cross section | |
| cluster_id | float32 | Will always be integer valued. 0 means not clustered. Otherwise same cluster id means same cluster |
The XYZ coordinate system follows the standard ROS convention of x forward, y left, z up.
This topic is only published if the radarpub service is configured with the clustering task enabled.
| Usage | Link |
|---|---|
| WebUI | |
| Foxglove | |
| SDK | Radar Clusters Example |
/radar/cube
The /radar/cube topic publishes information about the received radar sensor data using the custom RadarCube schema.
Note
This topic is only published if the radarpub service is configured with the radar cube publishing enabled.
| Usage | Link |
|---|---|
| WebUI | |
| Foxglove | Viewing Radar Cube |
| SDK | Radar Cube Example |
/radar/info
The /radar/info topic publishes information about the current radar configuration. It describes the state of the center frequency, frequency sweep, range toggle, and detection frequency of the radar.
| Usage | Link |
|---|---|
| WebUI | |
| Foxglove | |
| SDK | Radar Info Example |