One Base Connected to Multiple Rovers

Reach Module / M+ / M2 Hardware integration
1

Hi All,

If I connect multiple number of rovers to one base, how dose the base communicate (receiving and sending) with the rovers at once?

What I know is that one base can provide corrections to multiple receivers but the problem is that the base need to communicate with the rovers and read position and velocity information from each rover which can not be done with the radio modem suggested.

Thanks

2

Hello
I believe the base just broadcasts its info to any rovers that are connected.

Jim

3

Hi Jim,

Well if this is the case, then problem solved. But I was looking at other brand called Piksi which use the same technology and they point out that there will be a communication problem when we connect more than one rover to one base.

Thanks

4

There is another post on here where Emlid says it works search for multiple reach units on here.
I have not tried it myself though
Jim

5

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the “communication problem” you speak of is a limitation of the accessory radios included with the Piksi. What they are saying is that if you use the supplied point-to-point radios in their kit, then you can only have one rover running at a time. But that would also imply that with multipoint radios, you could have as many rovers as you like (for example the RFD900 running on SiK firmware 2.x).

To go the extra mile for you, I started a Reach base configured with a TCP server on port 9000. Then I made 3 separate TCP connections and recorded the RTCM3 stream to 3 separate log files:
nc 192.168.2.15 9000 > t1.log & sleep 1 && nc 192.168.2.15 9000 > t2.log & sleep 2 && nc 192.168.2.15 9000 > t3.log

The result was that each file was recording exactly the same data. So yes, connect multiple rovers to your Reach base station with confidence, whether it be by radio, wifi, or USB!

(The TCP connections were not made simultaneously, so the beginning and end of the log files were offset a bit. All that means is you can’t just do a normal diff -b. Instead, use dhex -cl t1.log t2.log and dhex -cl t1.log t3.log to do the comparisons.)

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