I have an application where I need to connect to multiple BlueBoats and BlueROVs at once from the same ground control station, using (ideally) one basestation and multiple FXTIs.
Hi @banergy -
Yes, this is possible, but requires some configuration on each unit. It has been discussed on the forums before, even in guide form. . Support on the ArduPilot forums may be more familiar with general considerations…
Each vehicle will need
Only QGround Control supports multiple vehicle connections, and we’ve only tested multiple BlueBoats - not ROVs. I’d think using QGC for the boats, and Cockpit for one ROV would be the best approach. You select the vehicle to be controlled, and others only respond if configured to do so via follow-me parameters.
ArduRover has follow-me mode that can make coordinating the movement of multiple vehicles easier - this is how we filmed the blue boat color hull launch video!
Bandwidth is going to be the limiting factor - if using only BlueBoats without cameras, I’d imagine you could connect dozens to the same WiFi AP from the BaseStation. As long as all units are in range of it, things should work well! Note that the MikroTik radios do not support mesh networking…
Having an ROV on the same system could consume a lot of bandwidth - but tethering ROVs to BlueBoats has never made much sense to me. Assuming it is connected to the same computer that the BaseStation is, via FXTI, then bandwidth should not be much of a concern - just the “horespower” of the control computer being used!
More than one Fathom-X can be connected to the same twisted pair, so you could have two ROVs connected to the same FXTI - however the bandwidth available does not increase with multiple tether communications modules sharing the bus…
Noting that QGC had some multi-vehicle improvements in v5, and at last count seems to have been able to handle as many as 200 (simulated) vehicles simultaneously although multi-vehicle functionality doesn’t seem to be well documented (if at all), so I’m not sure how well tested it is (in which case your results may vary, especially since there may be physical communication bottlenecks that are unrelated to QGC itself).
We are currently only recommending QGC 4.2.8, because that’s the latest version Blue Robotics has done extensive testing on, but if you’re pushing boundaries it likely makes sense to test with the latest software you can get that’s stable enough for your application.
Cockpit does not yet have multi-vehicle support, and as I understand it the development intent is only going to be to show additional vehicles in the system, rather than (easily) switching control between them, or controlling them as a swarm.
That said, plans can change, and if it’s a useful enough feature to enough people then we can at least look into the available options. It certainly brings an interesting set of problems to solve, and is an exciting space to consider / work with 
Looking forward to getting the new BlueBoat and BlueROV after the first of the year. Hopefully with some testing it will be possible as it’s my goal to have them schooling like my Hyl.io drones do. Cheers, Happy Holidays and looking forward to next year!