Product Manual of TFmini Mini LiDAR Module
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Specified Product Product model: TFmini Product name: Mini LiDAR Module Manufacturer Company name: Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Address: No.28, Xinxi Road, Haidian District, Beijing, PRC Copyright The Copyright of this document is protected. All the rights involved herein belong to Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Any copy activity of this document, no matter in whole or in part, should be in conformity of the Copyright Law.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Foreword Dear users, Thanks for choosing Benewake products, and it’s our pleasure to help you to solve any technical question. In the purpose of offering a better operation experience to you, we hereby write this manual for an easier and simpler operation of our product, hoping to better solve the common problems you maybe meet.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Table of Contents 1 ATTENTIONS ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 2 3 1.1 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT ........................................................................................................................................ 6 1.2 USAGE OF PRODUCT.................................................................................
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. 7.3 GENERAL PARAMETER CONFIGURATION AND DESCRIPTION ............................................................................................ 15 7.4 SPECIAL PARAMETER CONFIGURATION PROCEDURES AND DESCRIPTION ............................................................................ 18 8 REMOTE UPGRADING ......................................................................................................................................
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 1 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Attentions 1.1 About this Document This manual provides all the essential information during the usage of this product. Please carefully read this manual and make sure that you fully understand everything herein. 1.2 Usage of Product The maintenance work of this product is limited to the professional technician, and the product can only work with the factory spare part for ensuring the performance and safety thereof.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 2.2 Principle of Distance Measurement TFmini is based on TOF, namely, Time of Flight principle. To be specific, the product transmits modulation wave of near infrared ray on a periodic basis, which wave will reflect after contacting object. The product obtains time of flight by measuring round-trip phase difference and then calculates relative range between the product and the detection object, as shown in Figure1. Figure 1 Schematics of TOF Principle 2.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Figure 2 Schematics of Range of distance measurement and Effectiveness of the Product ①: Represents the detection blind area of TFmini, 0-30cm, within which the data is unreliable. ②: Represents the operating range of TFmini under extreme condition, which generally is 0.3-3m. Extreme condition refers to the outdoor glare (of which illumination intensity is around 100klux outdoors at noon in summer) and detection of black target (with reflectivity of 10%).
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. If the detection object cannot reach the Minimum side length of effective detection, as shown in Figure 3, the output (Dist) from TFmini will be a value between the actual distance values of the two objects. For a high accuracy requirements in practice, the above situation should be noticed to avoid the measurement error . Figure 3 Distance Measurement in the case of Two Objects in Different Distances 3 Appearance and Structure 3.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 3.2 Production Structure Detection initial point Unit: mm Figure 5 Constructional Drawing of TFmini 4 Electrical Characteristics Table 3: Major Electrical Parameters of TFmini Description Parameter value Power supply voltage 5V Average current ≤120mA Peak current 800mA Average power ≤0.6W Communication level LVTTL（3.3V） This product has no overvoltage nor polarity protection, so please make sure that connection and power supply are normal.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Table 4: The Function and Connection Description of each pin No. Pin Function Corresponding connection item ① GND Power supply Power Ground ② +5V Power supply Positive pole of power supply ③ RXD Receiving TXD ④ TXD Transmitting RXD Type of connecting terminal: GH1.25-4P. The product includes a 10cm long connecting wire, the other end of which is a conventional 1.25-4p terminal (Molex510210400).
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Byte1 0x59, frame header, same for each frame Byte2 Dist_L distance value lower by 8 bits Byte3 Dist_L distance value higher by 8 bits Byte4 Strength_L low 8 bits Byte5 Strength_L high 8 bits Byte6 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Mode, distance mode, represented respectively by 02 (short distance) and 07 (long distance), automatically switchable by default.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 6 Quick Test Procedures 6.1 Required Tools of Product Test TFmini TTL - USB converter Data wire USB cable PC PC software 6.2 Test Procedures ① Download the PC software Please download the PC software of TFmini at our official website (http://www.benewake.com/en/down.html). Caution: please shut down any anti-virus software before uncompressing the PC software. Otherwise, maybe the software is deleted as virus.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. displayed in area “④ TIME LINE CHART” on the right. Besides, the real-time data of the Current measure distance (Dist), effective data points per second (Effective Points) and signal strength (Strength) will be displayed in area “⑥ REAL TIME DATA” below. Figure 7 PC software Interface and Display Notes: a) If no data is available in area “④TIME LINE CHART”, please check the line connection and line sequence.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 7 Descriptions on User-defined Parameter Configuration 7.1 Function Overview The function of user-defined configuration of product parameters is hereby enabled for more flexible settlement of your problems by TFmini. User may modify original parameters by sending relevant instructions, such as output data format and output cycle, etc.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Explanation: ① The standard data output format is given in Table 6. “Pixhawk” data format is mainly used for the connection of Pixhawk, under which the data output is decimal string. ② This configuration is mainly used for the adjustment of the output frequency of product. Note that the value of EE FF must be integral multiple of 10; otherwise the command will be invalid.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 7.4 Special Parameter Configuration Procedures and Description The procedures of special parameter configuration are same as the general parameter configuration, without the need of sending the instruction for exiting configuration.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. firmware via remotely upgrading the PC software . The PC software may obtain the program version number and the product serial number by remote upgrade, and it assess whether the product needs to be upgraded. The firmware for the upgrade is contained in the zip file, and the PC software can automatically select the relative firmware for upgrade.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. of TFmini, which is only used to prompt the user that such data is unreliable. Troubleshooting: please use such value as the trigger signal of some unreliable data, and it will ensure that your system can use other reliable data for further assessment and decision-making if there are some unreliable data.
Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Troubleshooting: Check the TTL -USB board with the correct and reliable connection with TFmini and PC. Cause ③: Driver of serial port is not correctly installed. Troubleshooting: Plug and unplug USB cable again. Try to reinstall the driver or directly download and install a driver from the internet. If the PC software still work abnormally, please contact our technical support. 10 QA Q1: Is TFmini available with 3.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Attachment 1:Specifications of TF Series PC software This PC software only supports the Windows operating system for the time being, and besides it is applicable to any TF series products of Benewake but the output of those products is limited to the serial port communication protocol. Detailed operations are as below.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. make it easier to analyze the curve in [4]; after clicking [CLEAR], the plotted curve in [4] will be cleared and the plotting will be restarted. Data Amount, 5 by default, e.g.: upon receipt of every five data, the PC software will output one averaged data of the 5 data. The number of the data can be modified depending upon the actual requirement (the value is preferable to be ≥5 to prevent the PC software from lagging).
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Attachment 2: Development Routine of TFmini in Arduino In this routine, UNO and DUE board is taken as example, which is mainly for the user to quickly familiarize himself with our LiDAR and thus save the time of the product development. For detailed introduction and tutorial of Arduino, please refer to following two websites: Chinese website: http://www.arduino.cn/ English official website: https://www.arduino.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Step 2: Program Compilation At least two serial ports of Arduino are required for achievement of this routine function with one for receiving data of LiDAR and the other for outputting data to PC for display. The user may either copy following code and paste it in the IDE program editing window or directly open relevant enclosed file. /* this program is the interpretation routine of standard output protocol of TFmini product on Arduino.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. { uart[0]=HEADER; if(Serial1.read()==HEADER)//assess data package frame header 0x59 { uart[1]=HEADER; for(i=2;i<9;i++)//save data in array { uart[i]=Serial1.read(); } check=uart[0]+uart[1]+uart[2]+uart[3]+uart[4]+uart[5]+uart[6]+uart[7]; if(uart[8]==(check&0xff))//verify the received data as per protocol { dist=uart[2]+uart[3]*256;//calculate distance value strength=uart[4]+uart[5]*256;//calculate signal strength value Serial.print("dist = "); Serial.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Figure 3 Display of LiDAR’s Data on Monitor for Serial Port In addition, data curve can be viewed in the curve plotter for serial port , however, the above code regarding the printing of serial port (Serial.print) should be modified: // Serial.print("dist = "); Serial.print(dist);//output measure distance value of LiDAR Serial.print(' '); // Serial.print("strength = "); Serial.print(strength);//output signal strength value Serial.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. Attachment 3: Application of TFmini in Pixhawk Pixhawk is the upgrade of APM and PX4, of which APM uses conventional 8-bit SCM with limited arithmetic capability. While the PX4 is a transitional product starting to use STM32F4. Pixhawk is more refined and reliable flight control system developed from PX4. For the details of this series of the open source flight control system, refer to http://ardupilot.org/.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. RNGFND_MIN_CM = 30 RNGFND_MAX_CM = 1200 RNGFND_GNDCLEAR = 15 (expressed in cm, depending upon mounting height of the module) RNGFND_ORIENF=25 PRX_TYPE=0 PRX_YAW_CORE=22 Upon setting of these parameters, click [Write Params] on the right of the software to finish. If the error message “Bad Lidar Health” appears, please check if the connection is correct and the power supply is normal.
SJ-PM-TFmini-T-01 A03 Benewake (Beijing) Co. Ltd. If the error message “Bad Lidar Health” appears, please check if the connection is correct and the power supply is normal. Connection with SERIAL4/5 interface of Pixhawk Figure 2 Schematic Diagram of Connecting TFmini with SERIAL4/5 Interface (Serial Port 4/5) of Pixhawk Configuration Descriptions of Mission Planner Connect flight control board to MP, Select [Full Parameter List] in the left from the below bar [CONFIG/TUNING] .
