Using Sensors: Ultrasonic

Learning Objectives

This tutorial introduces how to use an Ultrasonic sensor for sensing an environment in Omniverse Isaac Sim. After this tutorial, you will know how to add an Ultrasonic sensor to the scene, activate, and detect objects in simulation.

5-10 Minute Tutorial

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Review the Core Tutorial series prior to beginning this tutorial.

This tutorial demonstrates how to integrate LIDAR sensors into an Omniverse Isaac Sim simulations. It shows how to set different Ultrasonic properties in the Property panel, and how to plot readings from the sensor.

Let’s begin setting up the scene by opening the Ultrasonic Example extension:

1. Go to the top menu bar and click Isaac Examples > Sensors > Ultrasonic.

2. Press the Open Source Code button to view the source code. The source code illustrates how to add and control the sensor using the Python API.

3. Press the Load Sensor button.

4. Press the Load Scene button.

5. Press the PLAY button to begin simulating.

This example creates an ultrasonic sensor with obstacles in the scene.

• Flickering white lines show the UltrasonicFiringGroups beams being fired at different times.

• Blue lines show where the sensor’s beams are hitting obstacles.

Adjust Sensor Properties

The Ultrasonic Sensors properties are held by the UltrasonicArray prim. Select this prim from the Stage to investigate these properties further.

Once selected, the UltrasonicArray’s Property panel populates with the many useful parameters, such as the number of emitters, firing groups, resolution, number of bins per Ultrasonic Sensor envelope.

• The envelope specifies the range in which an emitter is shooting beams out.

• horizontalFov and verticalFov control the size of the envelope.

• minRange and maxRange specify the distance range of the emitter.

• numBins divides minRange to maxRange distance.

• drawLines and drawPoints visualize useful debugging information.

• useBRDF and useDistAttenuation will affect hit intensities.

• Mouse over the white bars in the Example window to see which emitters are hitting the obstacle and how far away they are.

Summary

This tutorial covered the following topics:

1. Using Ultrasonic Sensors

Next Steps

See the other Sensor tutorials in our Advanced Tutorials section, Using Sensors: LIDAR, to learn how to integrate additional range sensors into Omniverse Isaac Sim.

Further Learning

For a more in-depth look into the concepts covered in this tutorial, please see the following reference materials:

Range Sensors

• See the PhysX Range Sensors (Lidar, Ultrasonic, Generic Range) Manual for full implementation details.

• See the Range Sensor API Documentation for additional usage information.