Hi, I’m trying to integrate my BlueROV with Blueprint Subsea Oculus Sonar. Have anyone tried this before? Or does anyone know how to integrate the hardware?
Hi Saravin,
I have integrated one a few times, what’s your issue ?
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Hi Paul,
I tried to connect sonar to the BROV using USB at raspberry pi. But then I couldn’t get the communication sonar communication.
Does it related to IP issues or my connection issue?
Did you do anything that would try to talk to it? BlueOS does not have a built in Subsea Oculus integration, and there isn’t currently an Extension* for it either, so the interfacing will need to be handled by you.
That said, the VirtualHere Extension might be a useful way of passing the USB signal to the topside as though the sonar is plugged in directly to the topside computer, in which case you may not need any particular integration within BlueOS.
*Note: Extensions are only available in recent beta versions of BlueOS 1.1.
Hi Saravin,
The Sonar does not need to go through the raspberry pi.
The easiest way is to use the blue robotics ethernet switch or any ethernet switch and plug it into that subsea and then it will connect to you computer on the surface.
One point to node is the blue Robotics equipment run on the network 192.168.2. -------
while the sonar comes shipped as default as 192.168.48.45(or at least they used to) so you would have to change the ip address of the sonar or go through at router.
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@Saravin - The comment from @Tangaroa is correct. The BlueRobotics Ethernet switch works very well for adding equipment like the Oculus sonar. If you purchased the Oculus Sonar with a cable for the ROV you will just add the penetrator and solder the open end to one of the ethernet switch wires provided with the BlueRobotics ethernet switch. In the BlueRobotics guides for the switch the wire colors are nicely called out. Just match these to the wire diagram from your Oculus sonar user manual.
As noted by @Tangaroa the next step is to set you IP address on your Oculus. Out of the box they come with DHCP enabled. Simply connect the Oculus directly to your computer with the test cable (same cable used for pole mount installation) and the Oculus ViewPoint software from Blueprint and follow the directions for setting a static IP. Because I have several of these sonars I just set them all to the same 192.168.2.4 and move them around as needed.
With this configuration you will see the sonar come up as soon as the network comes online and typically before the Navigator (or Pixhawk) come online. Don’t forget you may need to set-up your computer graphics card to force use of the card vs. on chip GPU for the Oculus ViewPoint software. You also want to set the priority / affinity for the for realtime / high for the Oculus ViewPoint. This will help with stuttering you may see if there is just not enough bandwidth to handle on the computer side of things.
You are going to love using the Oculus with your BlueROV. Shout out if you have any issues or questions.
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Thank you @Tangaroa and @Ben595 for the input. I have followed your steps. It is normal that we need to set the in our Control Box every time before start piloting the ROV? When ever I restart the BROV/Control Box, I lost communication with either BROV/Sonar. Currently BROV using 192.168.2.1 and sonar using 192.168.2.4.
@Saravin - I didn’t quite understand the question. Are you using a 3rd party Control Box vs a computer to operate your BlueROV? If I understand your question correctly then this is what I have observed. In windows 10 and 11 once you set you network up for the BlueROV it will remember the network each time and there is no need to set the static IP of 192.168.2.1 each time. However, it is one of the first things to check if the ROV does not connect. Regarding the IP Address of 192.168.2.4 for the Oculus, the Blueprint ViewPoint software will see the sonar at this address once set-up IF you have the BlueROV static IP address set-up.