During the last week there’s been lots of work, but we don’t have that much to show for it. We’ve spent a lot of time discussing what we should do during 2015. Last year there was a clear focus: develop, release and ship the Crazyflie 2.0. But up until now we haven’t really discussed what the goals for 2015 are. It’s not that we don’t have ideas, there’s always lots of ideas. It’s more about finding a common focus to work towards. It’s still ongoing, but there’s a few points that we know. We will of course continue the development (firmware, software, clients) of the Crazyflie as well as creating more expansions for the Crazyflie 2.0. For the expansion boards we’ve already talked a bit about it before, but for the firmware/software side we haven’t communicated our plan. The reason for this is simple, there’s not really been a plan for this. The main focus has been stabilization and creating clients for iPhone and Android. But now that it’s done we need to move forward with new features. If you have any feedback on this please let us know. Something that we are hoping to work on is ROS integration. (Edit: well, what do you know, this has already been started by Wolfgang Hoenig, the power of open source! Here’s a link) Once we figure out the plan we will let you now :-)
Fred, the main developer of the Crazyflie Android client, is doing a presentation about the Crazyflie at FOSDEM next weekend. Arnaud will be attending as well so if you would like to meet up, let us know!
But a few things happened during last week:
- There’s a new release of the Android Client (thanks Fred!), so make sure to upgrade your apps!
- We’ve added LED-ring settings to the FlighTab in the latest version on the develop branch of the client.
- We released a bug-fix version of the python client. This new version fixes Crazyflie 2.0 configuration.
- We added a some guideline for contributing to the client. We hope to streamline the contribution process to be more efficient at it. Tell us if you have any comments.
As for the RPM measurements and analysis we’re working on it, but it’s not ready yet… We are however making progress and it’s been very interesting, have a look at the thrust fixture we made :-).
I am actually working on the ROS integration which is documented on ros.org (http://wiki.ros.org/crazyflie). The current version has support for the Crazyflie 1 and Crazyflie 2 (including support for the LED ring expansion board). There is experimental support for multiple flies using a single radio as well. In early alpha stages are controller (using crazyflies in motion capture spaces), moveit integration (for path planning), and Gazebo integration (for simulation). I know of a few research groups who use my ROS package already. I hope to have the other components released in 2015.
The package uses the official Bitcraze SDK and just wraps everything in a ROS-way. Hence, it will hopefully stay up-to-date with any future changes. There will be some changes required in the SDK/Firmware for improving everything and I will send appropriate pull-requests when the code is stable.
Wolfgang Hoenig
University of Southern California
Well then I guess we can take a vacation :-). That is just great! We know there where some work done but not that extensive. Then we will be happy to support you instead! We will update the blog post with a link.
ok can someone help? I understand the LED additions have been implemented in the client. However how do I make a windows installer or run the client with the new changes? Also, if possible I remember seeing controller mappings for LED changes if that can be done also.
I saw the instructions in the read me but for the life of me, which is normally good with tech, I cannot manage to get this.
Please consider adding a FPV breakout board that uses crazyradio and interfaces with the client flight data view window.
Is there going to be a Gazebo Simulation at all?