Blueprint Oculus Sonar ROS2 Driver

ROS2 metapackage for the Blueprint Oculus M750d forward-looking sonar, containing:

• oculus_interfaces -- ROS2 message definitions (Ping, OculusStatus, etc.)
• oculus_ros2 -- ROS2 node wrapping the ENSTABretagneRobotics/oculus_driver C++ library

Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 / ROS2 Humble with the M750d sonar.

For a detailed walkthrough of the data pipeline, message construction, and image processing internals, see PIPELINE.md.

Published Topics

Topic	Type	Description
oculus/ping	oculus_interfaces::msg::Ping	Full ping message with raw data
oculus/image	sensor_msgs::msg::Image	Cartesian fan-shaped image
oculus/raw_image	sensor_msgs::msg::Image	Polar (bin-beam) image
oculus/pointcloud	sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2	3D point cloud (x, y, z, intensity)
oculus/pressure	sensor_msgs::msg::FluidPressure	External pressure (bar)
oculus/temperature	sensor_msgs::msg::Temperature	External temperature (C)
oculus/depth/odometry	nav_msgs::msg::Odometry	Depth computed from pressure
oculus/status	oculus_interfaces::msg::OculusStatus	Sonar connection status

Sonar Configuration

Configuration flags sent to the sonar via SonarDriver::request_ping_config():

Flag	Bit	Description
RANGE_AS_METERS	0	Range interpreted as meters (always on)
DATA_DEPTH	1	8-bit vs 16-bit data
SEND_GAINS	2	Include per-row gain data (always on)
SIMPLE_PING	3	Use simple ping format (always on)
GAIN_ASSIST	4	Automatic gain assist
NBEAMS	6	256 (off) vs 512 (on) beams

ROS parameters (frequency_mode, range, gain_percent, sound_speed) are exposed as dynamic reconfigure parameters and synced bidirectionally with the sonar hardware.

Dependencies

sudo apt-get install libboost-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev ros-humble-cv-bridge

Installation

cd ~/YOUR_WS/src
git clone https://github.com/BumblebeeAS/blueprint_oculus_sonar.git
cd blueprint_oculus_sonar
git checkout humble
cd ../..
colcon build --packages-select oculus_interfaces oculus_ros2

Launch

ros2 launch oculus_ros2 default.launch.py

Troubleshooting

The sonar has a fixed IP address which may or may not be indicated on the box. The driver broadcasts to discover the sonar's IP automatically. Ensure your system and the sonar are on the same subnet.

Acknowledgement

Modified from ENSTABretagneRobotics/oculus_ros2. We appreciate their work.