Sorry that I'm late to this discussion.
Handling multi-robot controllers was one of the design goals when we drafted the design for "Version 2.0" of the ROS-I interface ([REP-I0001](
https://github.com/ros-industrial/rep/blob/master/rep-I0001.rst)).
In particular, this interface allows sending/receiving messages with multiple "motion groups" inside them. Each motion group has an associated "group ID" that is used to associate a set of named joints (ROS-side) with a numbered group of joints on the robot side. Multi-robot controllers often represent the individual robots as separate "motion groups", and the group-ID can be directly associated with each of these motion groups. Group-ID can also be used in some cases to control external axes (such as positioners), without application-specific modifications to the robot-side ROS-I driver.
The definition of this interface is flexible enough to allow for many different scenarios, including sync/async control of multiple arms or planning from 1 or more different ROS-side motion planners. Control can be switched between these modes as needed.
Although we have defined the REP, adoption into the main ROS-I repos has been slow. I have updated the [industrial_robot_client](
https://github.com/ros-industrial/industrial_experimental/tree/indigo-devel/IRC_v2) library/nodes on the ROS side to support the new protocols. There is also an updated Fanuc driver, but I don't know that it has been released publicly yet. I don't know that these "v2.0" protocols have been used anywhere else.
I have successfully used this updated driver for control of a multi-arm Fanuc workcell with a positioner, and things worked well. But that's a relatively limited use-case, so the code and protocols could certainly benefit from wider testing/usage.
Let me know if you have questions or want to discuss further!
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