The proximity_sensor_add_obstacle package contains a node that can insert obstacles that the proximity sensor has detected into the collision map. Each patch can hold a configurable maximum number of obstacles. When more obstacles are detected, old ones are overwritten. You can also set a lifetime for obstacles since obstacles should disappear from the collision map after a while when they cannot be detected anymore.

In conf/add_obstacles.yaml there are the two parameters:

int_buffer_size: 10 // Number of maximum obstacles per patch

dbl_expiration_time: 5.0 // Maximum lifetime per obstacle in seconds

Be careful with editing these values when you have many patches in your proximity sensor! Big values can cause a lot of CPU load for the environment server!

To launch this node you first have to launch the tf node for the proximity sensor.

roslaunch proximity_sensor_tf tf.launch

As the tf node is running the add_obstacle node knows where to put the detected obstacles. Before you can actually launch the add_obstacle node you first have to launch an environment server, where the obstacles are added to. Normally this is done by an application that you want to use for example in the package pr2_arm_teleop_skin. However if that is not the case and you just want to start a new environment server you can use the launch file in the package.

roslaunch proximity_sensor_add_obstacles environment_server.launch

Then you are ready to launch the node via

roslaunch proximity_sensor_add_obstacles add_obstacles.launch