Wireguard IP fragmentation --> blurred video

Blue Robotics Software
1

Hello everyone

I am using a Blueboat as an unmanned survey vessel. The boat operates outside the range of the base station and is equipped with a Teltonika router. Because of CGNAT, I don’t have a public IP address, so I’ve set up remote access via WireGuard through a VPS. The connection is very stable, and telemetry data is transmitted reliably. However, the video stream (H.264 / UDP / port 5600) in QGroundControl becomes blurry or pixelated whenever the boat moves faster or there is more visual motion in the scene. My first suspicion was IP fragmentation along the path.

I initially tried ZeroTier, but I see a significant advantage with WireGuard because the latency is much lower and, after a connection loss, it reconnects almost instantly — without needing NAT hole punching. The link is usually re-established within about one second.

I have installed the DWE extension for my exploreHD 3.0 IP camera and reduced the bitrate, resolution, and frame rate. This already improved the result significantly. However, when the boat moves rapidly, I still notice pixel artifacts in the video.

I would like to reduce the RTP MTU on the boat to 1200 bytes to avoid packet fragmentation.
Is there a way to configure the RTP MTU in BlueOS or within the DWE / Camera Manager?
Do you have any alternative approaches or recommended solutions?

Cheers Arne

1 Like
2

Hi @Arne1 -
It sounds like you’ve taken all the steps I would recommend. Sh you could try improving your modems antenna height with a mast, but cellular connectivity is never going to provide the video performance you get with Wi-Fi or a tethered ROV…

I’m interested in how you setup wire guard- do you have any steps to recommend, lessons learned? It may be worth turning your setup into a BlueOS extension to share with others?