LiDAR ethernet port connection problems
Matthew Harrington 
I am new to using Ubuntu and Linux in general and am having difficulty connecting my Tim 561 LiDAR to my computer. I have a dell precision 5520 that is dual booted with windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 to use with ROS. I have the IP address formatted on the windows side of my computer and can connect and ping the LiDAR there, but when I switch over to Ubuntu and ping the lidar I get a message saying the network is unreachable. I have also tried to switch the IPv4 to manual and input the IP address, mask, and gateway in. Doing this allows me to connect to the lidar and ping it but 100% of the packages are lost in doing so. Below is the ping command I have inputted into the terminal and the result.
ping 169.254.181.101 2112
connect: Network is unreachable I would appreciate help on being able to communicate with the sensor.
2 Answers
The problem was a networking error with the LiDAR and the PC. The IP Address was slightly off and was found by using SOPAS to set the IP Address as the same as the computer and adjusting the last digit in the IP Address to a different value.
PC IP: 169.254.149.???
LiDAR IP: 169.254.149.XXXAfter this, the error on the ubuntu side was that the wired connection was not connecting appropriately due to the IP error. It was also not staying connected so I then used the network manager to change IPv4 to a link-Local Only to allow for the connection to be secured. Now the node sick_tim_5xx.launch was able to be executed with no errors
Can you interface with the usb port? Make sure you have a current version of Kinetic Kame installed and configured on your Ubuntu side and have followed the installation instructions, grab the sick_tim ros package, connect the usb port. Build with catkin or your preferred building tool, and try running roscore and the sick_tim node.
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