Sonar 3D-15 ROS Driver

Overview

This package provides a ROS 2 driver for the Water Linked Sonar 3D-15, a real-time multibeam imaging sonar. The sonar streams 3D range images over UDP multicast, which are decoded and published as standard ROS messages:

• 3D point clouds: sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 on /sonar_point_cloud
• Raw range images: sensor_msgs/Image on /sonar_range_image

The driver listens to RIP1 multicast packets, extracts and parses RangeImage protobuf messages, and converts the sonar data into formats usable by standard ROS visualization and processing tools.

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Features

• Receives and decodes RIP1 packets via UDP multicast
• Publishes point clouds and range images at real-time rates
• Automatically enables sonar acoustics and udp multicast on startup
• Compatible with ROS 2 (tested on Jazzy)

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Topics

Topic	Message Type	Description
/sonar_point_cloud	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	3D point cloud in ROS frame
/sonar_range_image	sensor_msgs/Image	Raw float32 range image (in meters)

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Usage

1. Clone the repository into your ros2 workspace

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/waterlinked/Sonar-3D-15-ROS-driver.git

2. Install requirements

Install requirements:

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Set IP-address of Sonar 3D-15

Change to your sonars IP-address in the sonar3d.launch.py file:

    {'IP': '192.168.194.96'},  # Change to your sonar IP, '192.168.194.96' is the fallback ip.

Alternatively, you can modify the default parameter in multicast_listener.py directly.

    self.declare_parameter('IP', '192.168.194.96')#  <-- your sonar's IP here, '192.168.194.96' is the fallback ip.

4. Build the package from the root of your ros project

cd ~/ros2_ws
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
colcon build --packages-select sonar3d
source install/local_setup.bash

5. Run the package

ros2 launch sonar3d sonar3d.launch.py

6. Playback of .sonar files and recording to ROS2 bagfile

A script has been included, which onverts Sonar 3D-15 .sonar files to ROS2 bagfiles.

Requirements:

• Tested with ROS2 Humble and Jazzy
• numpy, protobuf, sonar_3d_15_protcol_pb2.py
• sensor_msgs, std_msgs, builtin_interfaces
• cv_bridge (for ROS2)

Usage:

1. Start recording in one terminal:

ros2 bag record -o <output_bag_dir> /sonar3d/range_image /sonar3d/point_cloud

2. In another terminal, run:

python3 sonar_to_bag.py --file <sonar_file.sonar> --realtime-factor 1.0

The sonar_to_bag.py has been shared by Marios Xanthidis of SINTEF Ocean, with acknowledgements:

• Supported by the Research Council of Norway (EchoNav: NO-359447)
• Filtering and name conventions adapted from Alberto Quattrini Li @ Dartmouth His repository for ROS1 integration of the Sonar 3D-15 can be found in: https://github.com/quattrinili/Sonar-3D-15-api-example/tree/ros1

7. License

This package is distributed under the MIT License.