Gradual FPS degradation in elevation mapping output on NVIDIA Jetson Orin AGX with Livox MID360

[taylerkubins]

Description
When running elevation_mapping_cupy on NVIDIA Jetson Orin AGX with Livox MID360 LiDAR input, the elevation map publishing rate (FPS) continuously degrades over time during operation. The degradation is monotonic and unrecoverable without restarting the node, eventually dropping from initial ~10–15 FPS to <2 FPS within 5–10 minutes of runtime.

Expected Behavior
Stable map publishing rate matching sensor input frequency (Livox MID360 @ 10 Hz) throughout extended operation.

Actual Behavior

• Initial FPS: ~12–15 Hz (first 60 seconds)
• After 2 minutes: ~8–10 Hz
• After 5 minutes: ~3–5 Hz
• After 10+ minutes: <2 Hz with increasing latency in /elevation_mapping/elevation_map topic
• No crashes or error messages observed in logs

Environment

• Hardware: NVIDIA Jetson Orin AGX (32GB), Livox MID360 LiDAR
• OS: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
• ROS 2: Humble Hawksbill (20240523)
• Package: elevation_mapping_cupy