(From a modders standpoint of the product)
I hope a dev can reverse engineer the machine, it looks like a great ‘parts’ machine for the price.

(From a consumer standpoint of the product)
If reverse engineering doesn’t work and you get stuck with it,I hope the 2d mapping system on this is better than my roomba as my piece of crap can’t even dock properly with the charging base.

Correct me if I am wrong:

Did not the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge#2005_Grand_Challenge
…put an end to the advantages of an LIDAR system? I mean that is what everyone else was using, including the VERY IMPRESSIVE “Red Team” from Carnegie Mellon University. Instead the (rather small) Stanford Team won. Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think they made a very simple assumption that played out very well. They assumed the road to be colored differently then the land, and, accordingly, plotted their course.

I think the problem was that (some?) LIDAR systems rely on spinning mirrors and may also need to be isolated from shock. After taking apart my Roomba, I have real doubts that such a system (spinning mirrors) will survive in the brutal battle ground called “house keeping”**.

**(I have my own theories about why military companies make vacuum cleaners. Simply put, if it can clean your house for a year it certainly can survive a military sortie.)

macgyver I think you misunderstand what a bounty is. It is not meant to cover your time/costs, it is merely a supplimental rewards to the main one which is that you have the result of the hack for your own use. If you like it is mainly encouragement to share not to do the hack in the first place.

See this paper to get started:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4543666

These researchers worked together w/ the guys at Neato so this paper is very relevant.

@M4CGYV3R

ok…

1) Mythtv is an open source collage of software that makes a PC work similarly to a TiVo (or ReplayTV). But (I think) it runs rings around TiVo. However, it is a very hands-on effort.

http://www.mythtv.org/

2) Yes, but the saying goes “your time is money”. And as much as I enjoy participating in these discussions, I realize it is actually costing me real money. (Geez, now you took all the fun out of it.)

3) Ah, thanks for the pointers.

Lidar’s value is not as a Better or Worse sensing tech by comparisons per se. The reason/s for using Lidar are a granularity/blending element adding multimodal capability+ it serving as Communication Redundancy.

Also- IR Lidar+Kinect etc may expand the sensorium of telematics.

Why would you think it’s secretly been made hack-friendly? They probably just implemented it in a way that’s friendly to the engineers building it. The fact that this is helpful to anyone else coming along and looking at the interface is completely incidental.

hey it’s nibbler from ctfxc

What the F are you talking about, $1000 for a LIDAR. Buy any $150 laser rangemeter such as Bosch DLR165 or Leica or Hilti and tap into the PIC or serial bus on it. Stick that shit on a stepper motor and boom, a 2d scanner with 2 mm accuracy over 160 feet.

@ Wartex:

Exactly!
For all intent and purposes, the rangefinder/servo combo is a great option for the price. Done it 6 yrs ago and it worked fine.

Sadly, I never felt it would “expand the sensorium of telematics.” in my case. :P

@goeff: How high a sample rate were you able to get with a hacked rangefinder?

http://www.robotshop.com/blog/images/Neato-270.jpg
The pads are even labeled… it’s a LVTTL serial port. No idea on data format, though.

@st2000

If anything the DARPA grand challenge demonstrated that the best method of identifying drivable road relied heavily on Lidars. Every team used them to identify curbs, etc, while the most successful teams also used them to identify road paint using some lidar’s ability to deliver both reflectance and range data rather than just range.

The teams that relied on cameras to identify road paint, principally MIT, suffered from computer vision’s most common failing – changing scene illumination (mainly tree shadows falling on the road). Lidars are immune to this as they illuminate the scene themselves with their lasers.

All scanning lidars direct the laser using a rotating mirror but AFAIK they are relatively immune to vibration – instead they are sensitive to direct sunlight. The SICK lidars most teams used are engineered for industrial environments.

A cheap lidar would be great for the home-built robotics community. While some ~$2500 lidars have recently come out from Hokuyo, the 2D SICK lidars used by the DARPA competitors cost ~$5000 each and the 3D lidar each team used from Velodyne costs ~$70k.

Most teams invested almost $100k just in lidar sensors – a number perhaps matched only by that invested in their inertial-aided GPS system. The two in combination were the primary means all of the most successful robots used to perceive their world.

Xevel, on the Trosssen Robotics forum has made some good progress:
http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=4470&page=3

Also, the CEO of RoboDynamics is offering $200 to the first person using this sensor for SLAM:
http://robotbox.net/blog/gallamine/open-lidar-project-hack-neato-xv-11-lidar-200-bounty

How much of bounty will be sufficient to convert this sensor to a Doppler LIDAR for scanning rising air? Scanning distance lets say 0.5 mile around. Scanning data send over BlueTooth to Android or iPhone app showing surrounding area using colors for vertical air velocity?