Hi @ivaughn. I agree that there are plenty of messages that can be defined for the underwater robotics community. However, defining messages is the tip of the iceberg! For instance, I agree that a better multibeam message could be defined, however, to see the multibeam data in reat time using a laserscan message is already done but if a new message is defined this functionality must be reimplemented. What I want to say is that maybe, and only maybe, a good solution can be to add the very basic messages in the sensor_msgs package as soos as possible, and have a deeper discussion about all the rest. We are also interested in most of the message that you propose. I put a list of them and our current implementacion FYI:
- DVL (custom)
- depth (sensor_msgs/FluidPressure)
- Sidescan Sonar (custom)
- Multibeam Sonar (sensor_msgs/laser scan)
- inertial navigation system (sensor_msgs/IMU + nav_msgs/Odometry + …)
- One- and two-way travel-time measurement (custom)
- USBL fixes (geometry_msgs/PoseWithCovarianceStamped)
- CTD (custom)
- sound velocity (custom)
- water-column measurement (custom)
- Battery System (sensor_msgs/BatteryState)
- Cameras (sensor_msgs/CameraInfo)
- GPS (sensor_msgs/NavSatFix)
- …