@Jorge: Concerning the 9 DoF IMU, we recommend you browse our Inertia Measurement Units category. Make sure to scroll down the product pages to check the longer description and documentation (under Useful Links). Most of these devices can be used with any basic Arduino board. The choice really depends on your design. We recommend that you post about your project design on our forum here to obtain more detailed help from the RobotShop community.
What is the MINIMUM range? I can’t find that information anywhere. Also, what gets reported when something is closer than minimum range?
@Joe: The manufacturer does mention that while the minimum range is effectively zero, the distance measured at ranges under 30 cm may vary in quality due to the alignment of the components inside the case. Some users have reported good measurements as close as 10 cm while others only get good readings after 20-30 cm. Therefore, we recommend that you consider ~30 cm as a safe (but conservative) minimum distance. You may want to check your individual sensors as they may have a lower minimum distance due to tolerance in part placement/assembly.
Great project! I’d like to set this up, but using an Arduino Uno board. Are there any changes I need to make to the code to use an Uno? And can you tell me what pins I should wire up to the Uno to match what you did on the BotBoard?
@Vinter: There are no changes to the code (unless you change to different pins!) or the connections required but a few minor differences on where the pins actually are. For reference, the servo motor channel 5 on the right-hand side of the Lynxmotion BotBoarduino is the same as digital pin 5 at the top of an Arduino.
You can view this wiring diagram from the manufacturer of the LIDAR-Lite here for the Arduino Uno. Obviously, the Uno does not have extra pins for a servo motor connection, so you will need to wire those differently. The servo motor signal pin (usually yellow/orange/white) will go to one of the PWM-able pins and the VCC/GND will need to be powered outside of the Arduino since most motors use too much current for what it can provide. Please make sure to have a common ground though, to prevent signal issues.
Thanks for clearing that up for me. I was having some issues running the above set up, and I wasn’t sure why. I was using the newer version of LidarLite, and It turns out the new LIdarLite V2 (blue label) handles I2C differently from version 1. Thanks again!
@Vinter: Ok, that makes a lot of sense then! As an side note, we are preparing a new blog post concerning the LIDAR-Lite v2 specifically to help users complete a basic setup. We do not have a time frame yet but it will certainly help many users with the basics of using this new product.
Hi! My son is looking to build a lidar based obstacle avoidance rover, he has done other with basic type of sensors… would there be sample arduino code he can look at, he said he is interested in figuring out distance? We bought the version 2 of the lidar, should we have bought version 1? Thanks!!
@Juan: Both versions of the LIDAR-Lite work great to get distance readings with good precision and accuracy. Version 2 as a few new features and can take faster measurements. You can also use multiple sensors on one I2C bus, which can be advantageous in some cases. You can find the library on the manufacturer’s GitHub, available here. Please note that this library is still in beta (but functional) and is being modified regularly. Someone else also posted on our forum about using the LIDAR-Lite v2 with this blog post. You can read more details here.
Thank you Sebastien. My son got the lidar-lite to work with his robot this weekend. He borrowed code from different sources to make a very basic obstacle avoiding rover. so far so good, but he would like to test a bit more. His project involves comparing various types of sensors, so far ultrasonic and lidar. He is betting on lidar btw 
thanks again!
Wondering, if anyone used the Lidar-lite yet for wind speed/direction measurement? Since it would use the small particles’ movement in the air, how would that be isolated and measured from all the reflected data?
@Tom: It’s potentially doable, but not with the sensor as-is. The LIDAR-Lite is built specifically for range finding, not reliably detecting the motion of a mass of particles on a grand scale. This would require different components and signal processing in the device. Basically, a new product!
Sebastien, I am interested in using one LIDAR-Lite to generate a matrix of lasers, is this possible? I want to attach the device to the front of a car and use it to detect potholes in the road and was wondering if you think this is feasible.
Thank you for the quick reply. I believe the sensor has a built-in function for “velocity” as it applies to the target, which I guess is the “ranged object”. I am in the process of dusting off an Arduino Mega (can’t find my Uno:) and was wondering if instead of aiming at a target on the terrain where it gets reflected from a solid object, I could aim in the air without a mass of solid objects present except potential small aerosol particles to reflect from. I guess without trying this I would not know if any of the reflections back could be isolated from the noise. I see your point that the expected reflection signal from a larger solid mass object is probably 10,000 times higher (my guess only) than the “noise” of air particles…
@Bill: This may be very hard to solve this problem using the LIDAR-Lite. At your average city driving speeds, you would be covering over 27 cm (or ~11 inches) in the time required to perform one reading (~20 ms). This means you would have a “blind spot” of nearly a foot between readings. This is probably enough to miss small pot holes. At faster speeds (such as on the highway), of course, the “blind spot” becomes greater (linearly proportional). Since the beam of the LIDAR is very small, if you use only one sensor you would need to rotate it to see ahead for the width of the car, which will add more delay and make the “blind spot” size impractical enough to make this device not helpful for warning of pot holes (it would miss most of them). There may be other more suitable devices available to make such a detection system. We recommend that you post about your idea in our forum and see what the RobotShop community suggests. You can also post about it on Let’s Make Robots.
@Tom: You can certainly use the velocity mode to do this (against a large object). But, with the current signal processing, the product expect a certain “signal strength” to be returned. Small airborne particles probably won’t return enough to meet this requirement. Therefore, the product will return most likely measure a distance of 0, which will prevent proper calculation of the velocity. This may be getting a bit too complicated for a comment on the blog post, so we recommend that you post about your idea on our forum and/or on Let’s Make Robots.
Hello Sebastian
I was thinking of using Lidar-Lite to detect objects in a 3D cone or any 3D plane.
any thoughts on how I can use Lidar Lite to achieve this.
Another question
The Servo motor displayed on this page takes 0.2 sec to cover 60degrees(no load)
what would that speed look like when the Lidar is mounted on the servo?
Thank You in advance
Hi Sebastien,
I have a similar project to @Jorges, needing to store LiDAR data and process it for coordinates to fly to, all onboard the UAV. But there are so many different configurations of Arduino and RaspberryPi boards available, could you recommend one? Also, is it a good idea or completely bonkers, if i had two Arduino boards(possibly of different configuration). One for the LiDAR, one for the UAV rotors, and most likely one RaspberryPi board between the two for processing power. Could i get your feedback on this?
Cheers,
Ryan
@Saad Hayat: Hi Saad. The simplest solution for 3D scans using the LIDAR-Lite would be to use a pan & tilt kit, such as this one. The distance and servomotor angles can be used to determine the spherical coordinates of the objects/surfaces detected. From there, you can create a point cloud and process this data as needed.
Since the entire RB-Pli-01 has a weight of about 16 g, you can expect the servomotor to move at a speed very close to its maximum.
@Ryan: Hi Ryan. Since this is a more advanced design question, we recommend you instead post about it on the forum. This would allow for easier communication and adding diagrams and such to the replies. Having simple boards such as Arduinos to handle low-level, real-time operations such as basic sensor data gathering and motor control is actually a great idea. While the Raspberry Pi has more processing power, it is usually used with a Linux distribution which (in most cases) prevents a complete real-time operation. This can be very important in time-critical steps such as motor control on a UAV.