Advanced Usage

#General Information

This documentation page is for detailed information about the services and pages in the BlueOS web interface. For a higher level list and direct comparison of features see the Overview instead.

#Pirate Mode

The default BlueOS interface is simplified, and shows only the major tools that most people are likely to find useful. Full functionality is available via "Pirate Mode", which can be enabled from the settings in the sidebar. Note that Pirate Mode is advanced/development mode, and should be used with care.

This documentation by default shows the full functionality interface, to provide an overview of all functionality instead of a limited subset, but if you're only interested in the basic functionality you can click the button below:

Any pages that are extended by (or only available in) Pirate Mode are shown in dark mode, and described with grey text.

#Main

When you first open BlueOS, you'll see a window like the following:

#Indicators and Network Configuration

On the right side of the header you'll find:

#Notifications

• Press broom to clear notifications
• Press cog to toggle showing old messages

#Ethernet + static IP management

Choose between:

• A static IP
• A DHCP server
• A dynamic IP

#Wifi network management

• Choose a network to connect to
• Forget, connect to, or a force a new password for a saved network

#System status

• Heartbeat icon pulses with vehicle heartbeat, and goes red if heartbeat is lost
• On click shows onboard computer temperature, voltage, and current usage
• Additional warning icons appear if a problem is detected on the onboard computer:
  • High disk usage
  • CPU overheating
  • CPU throttling
  • CPU under voltage

#Sidebar

The burger menu at the top left of the header opens up the side-bar, for conveniently accessing available pages, tools, and services.

#Settings

• Reset BlueOS settings
  • Remove existing camera/endpoint/bridges configuration
• Pirate mode toggle
  • Access or hide advanced functionality
  • Advanced users only - pirate mode is not recommended for normal use
• Dark mode toggle
  • Change between light and dark viewing modes

#Power

• Power off
  • Shut down onboard computer
  • Recommended before turning off vehicle power
• Reboot
  • Reboot onboard computer

#Feedback

Submit feedback about BlueOS via:

• Issues on the GitHub repository (allows easily tracking changes, and notification when complete/fixed)
• Posts on the Blue Robotics forum (allows easy discussion with the community)

#Vehicle

#General

The "General" page provides basic info about the active autopilot, along with options to:

• Change board (select a connected board, or run an SITL simulation)
• Restart the autopilot

#Firmware

• ArduPilot family of firmwares only
• Choose firmware to install
  • Select from the online repository
    • Select vehicle type (Sub / Rover / Plane / Copter)
    • Select desired release and stability level
      • Official - The latest stable release. Recommended for most users.
      • Stable - A production-ready release. Suitable for most users.
        • e.g. Stable-4.0.3
      • Beta - In-testing release, with new features and improvements, aiming to become stable. May have bugs.
      • Dev - Development branch, with all the newest features. Intentionally unstable (changes quickly), and possible untested/dangerous.
  • Upload a custom firmware file from the surface computer
  • Restore the default (ArduSub) firmware for the connected flight controller
• Flash firmware onto a connected compatible flight controller board

#Log Browser

• Built in log viewer for powerful analysis of vehicle telemetry
• Currently only set up to fetch logs automatically from Linux-based autopilots
  • e.g. Pixhawk not yet supported

#Video

• BlueOS automatically detects H264-encoded video streams
• The first time BlueOS starts up it will auto-configure any cameras that are connected at that time, with UDP streams counting up from port 5600
  • e.g. a second camera at first startup would be streamed to port 5601
  • Auto-configuration also occurs if the settings are reset

• After the initial startup, settings are saved and persistent across reboots
  • Further changes require manually re-configuring streams
  • New streams need to be manually added
    • The stream endpoint should be set to udp://<surface-IP>:<port>
    • e.g. udp://192.168.2.1:5601
• The streams are also presented via MAVLink, so QGroundControl (>=v4.1.7) can toggle between them without needing to know specific ports.

• Camera settings (brightness, exposure, etc) that are exposed via UVC can be configured with the "Configure" button
• Switching streams in QGroundControl while recording stops the current recording
  • If you are regularly switching streams it may be worth doing a screen recording either instead of or as well as recording the base video
• QGroundControl does not yet support displaying multiple streams simultaneously
  • Additional streams can be processed/viewed/recorded by the options discussed here
• Raspberry Pi cameras are not yet supported in the pre-built releases/images
  • It is possible to do a custom installation on Raspberry Pi OS Buster or manually enable the legacy camera stack on Bullseye if necessary

#Tools

#System Information

The system information page provides useful information about the processes, network configuration, and computer system BlueOS is running on. It can be useful for troubleshooting, and finding if a particular program is using excessive resources.

#Network Test

The Network Test page measures real-time latency between BlueOS and the surface computer, and allows checking the upload and download speeds between them.

#Version Chooser

The Version Chooser is a major component in the robust backbone of BlueOS. It runs independently from the main interface, and is monitored such that if it somehow fails a backup version will be run in its place.

• The simplified interface provides an easy way to update to the latest version that is as stable or more stable than the currently installed version