Connecting ZED Mini Box (Ubuntu 22.04) with Unitree Go2 Robot (Ubuntu 20.04) to Access IMU Data for Real-Time Integration

[Justinmars]

Hello Stereolabs Team,

I am currently working on a research project at the University of Birmingham using the ZED Mini Box (Jetson Orin, Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS) together with a Unitree Go2 quadruped robot (Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS).

My goal is to let the ZED Mini Box communicate with the Go2 robot so that I can access and read the robot’s IMU and position data (from the sport-mode logger or Unitree SDK) in real time. I would like to integrate these values with environmental sensor data from an Arduino system and the ZED camera output, then visualize everything together in the Unity engine for real-time mapping and analysis.

At the moment, I am unsure about the best way to achieve this connection since both systems use different Ubuntu versions. Ideally, I would like the ZED Mini Box to receive and synchronize the robot’s IMU data either through the network, ROS2, or another communication method that you recommend.

Could you please advise on:

1. How to connect and communicate the ZED Mini Box with the Unitree Go2 robot dog system, as both systems use different ubuntus os systems.

Any guidance or reference examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your time and support.

Best regards,
Hong Wei Soon

[Myzhar]

@Justinmars

At the moment, I am unsure about the best way to achieve this connection since both systems use different Ubuntu versions. Ideally, I would like the ZED Mini Box to receive and synchronize the robot’s IMU data either through the network, ROS2, or another communication method that you recommend.

In my opinion, ROS 2 is the best way if Unitree provides ready nodes to control the robot.

We at Stereolabs provide full ROS 2 integration:

• Main packages: GitHub - stereolabs/zed-ros2-wrapper: ROS 2 wrapper for the ZED SDK
• Examples and tutorials: GitHub - stereolabs/zed-ros2-examples: A collection of examples and tutorials to illustrate how to better use the ZED cameras in the ROS2 framework
• Detailed documentation: Getting Started with ROS 2 and ZED - Stereolabs

[Justinmars]

Hello Myzhar,

Thank you again for your reply. I would like to provide more details about what I have tried so far.

According to the Unitree documentation for the Go2 robot, communication can be established through the Ethernet port at the back of the robot. I followed their official steps to set up a static network connection between my ZED Mini Box (Jetson Orin, Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS) and the Unitree Go2 robot (Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS):

1. I connected both devices directly using a LAN cable.

2. On the ZED Mini Box, I opened Settings → Network → Wired → Add connection, selected Manual (IPv4), and set:

   • Address: 192.168.123.51

   • Netmask: 255.255.255.0 (or 24)

3. I saved the configuration and restarted the network.

4. I then tried to ping the robot at 192.168.123.18, and also attempted to connect using SSH:

   ssh -X unitree@192.168.123.18
   
   

   (default password: 123)

However, the connection failed and Ubuntu showed this message:

“Connection failed, activation of network connection failed.”

I also ensured that other network interfaces (such as Wi-Fi) were disabled to avoid conflicts.

Could you please advise if this could be related to the static IP configuration on the ZED Mini Box or if there is another step needed to establish Ethernet communication between both systems?

Thank you very much for your help and guidance.

Best regards,
Hong Wei Soon