pointcloud_to_laserscan node stops publishing after ~5 seconds when the robot (drone) starts flying

[hsmmoj]

I am using the pointcloud_to_laserscan package in a ROS 2 Humble setup. When the drone is stationary, everything works as expected — /scan publishes at a stable ~10 Hz. However, once the drone takes off and starts flying, the node runs fine for a few seconds (~5 ) and then hz decreases and stops publishing entirely.

Setup:

ROS 2 Humble on Ubuntu 22.04
pointcloud_to_laserscan launched as:

Node(
package='pointcloud_to_laserscan',
executable='pointcloud_to_laserscan_node',
name='cloud_to_scan',
remappings=[
('cloud_in', '/rgl_lidar'),
('scan', '/scan'),
],
parameters=[
{'use_sim_time': True},
{'target_frame': 'RGLLidar'},
{'transform_tolerance': 0.10},
{'min_height': -2.0}, {'max_height': 2.0},
{'angle_min': -3.14159}, {'angle_max': 3.14159},
{'angle_increment': 0.00872665},
{'range_min': 0.1}, {'range_max': 25.0},
{'use_inf': True}, {'inf_epsilon': 1.0}, {'queue_size': 1},
# QoS overrides attempted, but didn’t apply
{'qos_overrides./cloud_in.subscription.reliability': 'reliable'},
{'qos_overrides./scan.publisher.reliability': 'reliable'},
],
)

Observed behavior:

• /scan publishes correctly when drone is idle.

• After takeoff, /scan frequency gradually drops (verified via ros2 topic hz /scan) until it completely stops publishing after a few minutes.

• When checking with ros2 topic info -v /scan, the publisher is still present, but no data is flowing.

Questions and debug

1. Is there a known issue with pointcloud_to_laserscan under dynamic transforms or moving frames?

2. Should target_frame be set differently (currently set to the sensor frame RGLLidar)?

3. Could this be related to QoS not being properly overridden?

[Rayman]

Could it be the Wi-Fi link to your robot decreases in quality leading to packet drops? I think you might have more success with best-effort QoS with these messages.