Software Manual

This page will contains the manual of the Cockpit software that allows you to control the OpenROV directly from your browser.

Connecting to the OpenROV
To connect to the OpenROV Method 1:
 * 1) Connect the tether directly to your computer's ethernet port
 * 2) Power up the OpenROV
 * 3) Wait about 1 minute for the system to boot up (a red light on the cape should light up indicating that the Arduino is reset and powered on by the OpenROV software)
 * 4) Direct your web browser to "192.168.254.1:8080"

Make sure that your Ethernet adapter is set to a static IP of 192.168.254.2

To set your static IP, you can follow these instructions for Windows, or OSX

Your subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0, and you can leave the default gateway empty

Method 2:
 * 1) Connect the tether to a router that your computer is connected to
 * 2) Power up the OpenROV
 * 3) Wait about 1 minute for the system to boot up (a red light on the cape should light up indicating that the Arduino is reset and powered on by the OpenROV software)
 * 4) Direct your web browser to 192.168.1.1 and log into the router
 * 5) Pull up the list of connected devices, typically this menu is called something like "List of Clients" or "DHCP reservation". Google around to find specific instructions for your router model
 * 6) Find the IP of the OpenROV. The OpenROV client name will be listed as "OpenROV" (no surprise there)
 * 7) Direct your browser to "TheOpenROVipYouFound:8080"

Troubleshooting
If you are not able to connect to the OpenROV:

Check with method 2 to see if the OpenROV is acquiring an IP address. If not, the BB is not booting up properly. Try re-writing the OpenROV image to the BB SD card with these instructions. Installing The Software

If you are able to connect to the OpenROV, but not able to control lights/motors:

The Arduino aboard the Cape may not have the OpenROV sketch uploaded/and out of date version of the software. See Update Software for instructions on how to update the Cape/Arduino.

Updating the ROV
To update the ROV see this guide for instructions on how to update both the BeagleBone and the Cape

The view port


This portion of the UI shows the live video feed from the ROV. You cannot do anything with it :)

In case the webcam is not detected you will see the following "no-camera" image.



If instead you see a "broken source" image it means the camera has been detected, but it's not sending video. Sometimes this happens the first time you connect after powering up the ROV: just refresh the page in the browser and it should go away.



Bottom bar
On the bottom bar the status of the ROV is displayed



On the far left you have an indicator of whether the connection between the board and physical actuators (if you know about the architecture of the system, it checks the connection between the beaglebone board and the arduino on the cape).

On the other side you have the battery level and the current value of the voltage entering the cape and more right the time since the board has been started and the time of the day.

Sidebar
On the sidebar you have boxes with the devices you can control on the ROV, and their current status.



Controller detected
On the top you have a box that tells you if controller has been detected, and if not, it informs you that you are using the keyboard.

Camera inclination
It shows the current angle of inclination of the servo that rotates the webcam.

Light brightness
It shows the brightness of the front-facing light.

Settings page


Via the Settings page you can now upload a new firmware for the Arduino and in future set some system-wide settings and preferences. To update the arduino firware please refer to the Software Update page.

Controlling the ROV
You can control the ROV either via a game controller, or via a normal keyboard.

Gamepad
Gamepad support is still experimental, as the JavaScript gamepad API are still being defined and not all browsers support it. Currently the only browser supporting them in an official stable release is Chrome from version 24 and up. Firefox supports it in some special builds. Internet Explorer, Opera or Safari do not support it at all.

If you want to use your gamepad to control OpenROV please refer to the Gamepad setup page.

To control the OpenROV with the gamepad the following command apply:

[Gamepad image]

Throttle and dive
You can control the forward / backward motion, the rotation and dive / surface using the arrow keys and the control keys:

Set the speed of the motors in 5-step increments, using keys from 1 to 5:

You can also trim the forward / backward and the dive / surface motion:

Web cam rotation
The rotation of the camera is controlled via the Q, A, Z keys:

Light brightness
You can turn on the front-facing lights and control their brightness using the + and - keys. The brightness can be controlled in 10 steps.