BlueROV with 7 external cameras!

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Hello everyone!

Over the past year, the DWE.ai team has been hard at work developing a comprehensive hardware and software solution for viewing and recording from multiple external cameras on the stock BlueROV2.

Today, we’re excited to introduce what we believe to be the perfect solution! :blush:

Our hardware solution leverages our exploreHD/exploreHD Heavy cameras, which can be seamlessly connected to our 7-Port Multiplexer Hub board. To accommodate the necessary penetrator holes, we’ve replaced the stock dome end cap with a flat aluminum end cap. With the ability to install up to 7 external cameras, the camera in the dome becomes redundant.

Here’s an image of the setup:

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For a detailed installation guide, please refer to this video:

With this setup, you can have views from the side, back, front, and bottom!

The ROV software can run on the stock BlueOS and is plug-and-play, ready to stream. For advanced camera controls (such as bitrate, VBR, GOP, etc.), we currently offer our open-source DWE OS, which can be installed individually or run alongside BlueOS in the background. In the future, we plan to release an extension for BlueOS that enables similar features.

On the top-side, our software solution relies on our newly developed Discovery streaming and recording software. While there are existing solutions like OBS or even our own custom QGroundControl viewer, they often require extensive setup and high-end PCs to handle multiple H.264 streams.

Discovery software is designed to be incredibly user-friendly, working seamlessly across various operating systems without the need for additional installations or libraries. We’ve tested it on a laptop with a Ryzen 7 processor (without a dedicated graphics card) in power saver mode, and it successfully displayed all 7 streams and recorded without any frame drops or latency issues.

Check out our introduction video here:

In the future, we have plans to incorporate even more cameras and additional features into both the ROV-side software and Discovery! :blush:

We hope this guide helps you in installing multiple cameras on a BlueROV!

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This seems really interesting, and I like the idea to add bout sidewiewing cameras and a rear camera. The Challenge for us with BlueROV-models with some extras (Heavy version with GPS-locator, DVL, and gripper) even with a 18 hole version end cap, we have not many holes left. Is there a solution for this? Could the card be installed in an separate enclosure?

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@LarsD, I’m running 5 of the DWE cameras my vehicle. To get past the number of penetrator holes on the 4", I did just as you predicted: A second Raspberry Pi4 with their USB mux card in a 3" BlueRobotics housing. I gave that Raspberry Pi a different IP. (192.168.2.22) and loaded DWE’s OS on it. A GB cable, and a power cable were the only ports used on the 4". I believe DWE is coming out with a bespoke enclosure for situations like this.
I’ve only been using the ‘Discovery’ software for the other views for a couple weeks but impressed so far.

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Our best solution is to remove the camera that would be in the dome and have a end cap with holes on it. It is also possible to use another Raspberry Pi and an ethernet switcher but that will take more modifications.

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For the last 15 years or so, I’ve just been using a stripped-down security-system DVR board in my ROV, which multiplexes the feeds from my 8 FPV microcams and connects through an off-the-shelf 4-port ethernet hub to an ethernet-over-coax adapter to the surface. Then view the camera feeds in a browser topside.

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