Running Multiple Robots on One Router

[Tom Line]

Alright, I did a search for 'router' here on the forum but didn't see anything that directly answered this question.

In the next several weeks we'll be doing a demo with a number of other robots. The idea is to only have one robot running at a time on the practice field.

Can a team configured with their standard ip addresses (10.aa.bb.zz) on driver station and robot simply plug into a router that has been configured following the FIRST protocols for another team (10.cc.dd.zz)?

In other words, if another team were to plug into our router, would it communicate with their robot? The router will not be password protected.

[Mark McLeod]

Should work.
Might want a router net mask of 255.0.0.0

[plnyyanks]

I think the router's subnet mask has to be 255.0.0.0 for this to work (and, if I recall correctly, the 2009 KOP router can't do that (DISCLAIMER: the preceding statement may/may not be correct)), and of course, all robots have to be connected to that network. If you can do that, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to run multiple robots like you outlined

[linuxboy]

There shouldn't be any reason that you need to change the subnet mask on the router, in fact I would recommend disabling DHCP on the router since all you really are having it do is act as a switch. Subnet masks are used for routing but since everything is going over the local network no routing needs to be done.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by linuxboy

There shouldn't be any reason that you need to change the subnet mask on the router, in fact I would recommend disabling DHCP on the router since all you really are having it do is act as a switch. Subnet masks are used for routing but since everything is going over the local network no routing needs to be done.

That's been my experience with the classmate wired to the router (netmask doesn't matter). It did matter with the classmate wireless to the router (didn't work).

Remember to change the SSID on the other teams radios to match the router.

[linuxboy]

It really should not make a difference whether the device connects via Ethernet or Wi-Fi because the layer at which TCP/IP (which involves subnet masks) operates is above the Physical Layer (which is wi-fi vs ethernet). It is possible that windows will complain about limited access or something but as long as all the IPs of the classmates and robots are set correctly the router setting should not make a difference.