Hi all, Long shot here. Has anyone experimented, or had success with, a “remotely” controlled ROV, as in forwarding the connection to access over the internet for someone not on-site? Lag etc considered, full, fine scale control may not be necessary, but simple ahead/astern and camera view would be good.
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No one that I’m aware of has tried it, but there should not be much to it. It will consist of opening some ports on your router and changing the target ips for the telemetry and video streams.
I will try to do a test and provide a small writeup soon.
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thanks Jacob. The client already has survey equipment is place, streaming data over a 4G cellular network router with port forwarding etc. At the moment it’s a bit pie in the sky, and just looking at options, but if it is a possibility, that’s great!
Our MATE robotics team implemented internet control this year because our programmer(s) intially needed a way to test their ROV controller code remotely while under development (our hardware is an off-the-shelf uC and completely custom software) and the internet code provided a simplified control interface. The advantages to the system ended up being such that we abandoned the original control system and fully developed the internet control system. Initially, a spare controller was connected to the internet, but later the actual ROV was used just to see if we could. Then it became the sole control method, although we can use it local or remote by clicking a button which changes the target ip address. I would prefer not to go into all of the details until the competition date has passed, but you can PM me.
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Did you find the video feed suitable quality?
No. The latency from the IP cameras was about 3 seconds, then add to that another second or so over the netwiork.
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Just a follow up here, @patrickelectric was able to control my ROV on the US east coast from his desk in Brazil according to the points I outlined above. We did have to play with the video stream settings to get latency to a good point (it is drastically better when the resolution is lower), but in all, I’m quite pleased with the initial results. We were going through our home internet and wifi, I’m not sure how well it would work on a cellular network, probably not so well.
Will do a stronger writeup when time provides.
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hi
can give me write up how do that @jwalser
thanks
You will see when we have the writeup completed by looking here:
https://github.com/bluerobotics/ardusub-gitbook/issues/44
I connected to a client’s ROV using my controller and flexihub and teamviewer.
The lag for the control was terrible but apparently this can be improved.
Might be worth a try.
Has anyone got some basic instructions of how to setup the ROV to be controlled over the internet?
It seems like a few people have done it but I am not able to find any detailed information.
I know the basics of networking and I can adjust router settings and forward ports etc.
Just need some help in the right direction!
Hi all, I wanted to ping on Adam’s question above on this. I’d also welcome any notes/instructions available on setting ROV control over the internet, if anyone has any they could share. Thanks very much!
The basic
- Connect ROV to the internet
- Change settings in /camera and /mavproxy
Camera: ! udpsink host=RemoteIP port=5600
Mavproxy: udpcast:RemoteIP:14550 - Open UDP port 5600 and 14550 where your topside computer is connected.
Thanks for the response! Will be a week or two before I’ll be able to dig in on this, but this is a helpful start.
Or try Parsec
I have a likely basic question on this, but nevertheless any guidance would be much appreciated.
Is it possible to connect the standard FXTI unit to the internet through a mobile router, or would I need an actual computer directly connected to the FXTI, then a mobile router, and then start playing with ports from there?
In the ideal world, what I’d like to do is have the connection chain look like: 1) ROV to FXTI via tether, 2) FXTI to mobile router via short cable, and 3) mobile router to topside PC via internet.
I could certainly swap in particular mobile routers that might help, but what I have on hand is a Netgear Nighthawk MR1100 (4G) router, that can serve data through both an ethernet port or a USB-C port.
Is the above feasible, or would I essentially need a PC on both ends to make this work? Thanks in advance, as this certainly isn’t my area of expertise.
On a related note @richard-rickett Parsec seems like a great potential bridge in a situation where there is a PC on both ends, particularly around latency. But as above, not sure if/how that would work if I’m trying to use a single PC to connect directly through an on-site router.
Thanks all!
Yes that is possible. Thats the way I have been testing it.
FXTI is only a FathomX and usb to ethernet cable inside.
Excellent, that’s great news. Have a cable on order to give it a try. Thanks very much for the feedback.
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone have got to control the Bluerov2 remotely over internet/4g with a good result?
Read something about this MAVproxy, is that the way to go?
Thanks
Hi @Jhans,
I’ve moved your post here, because it’s on the same topic.
This isn’t something I’ve had to set up myself, but it’s definitely possible. I’ve used a system like this before, but that one was intended as a service, so is a bit more complex than would be required for just normal control.
MAVproxy is a proxy for MAVLink messages (which are used to send control messages to the ROV, and which the ROV uses to send telemetry). That’s likely lower level than you need to worry about, because the onboard computer on the BlueROV2 already handles MAVLink messages and the video stream over UDP.
As others have discussed above you’ll instead just need some sort of router and 4G module at the surface (can be a floating buoy/surface vessel, or fixed to a structure) that’s able to support an external connection, and forwards the relevant ports to it 