The Crazyflie 2.x comes with everything you need for flying from a Bluetooth LE enabled mobile device. Currently Android and IOS devices are supported.
What to buy:
The Crazyradio 2.0 enables you to connect the Crazyflie 2.x to a computer. Connect a gamepad to the computer and run our client software to control the Crazyflie 2.x.
The Crazyradio 2.0 enables you to connect the Crazyflie 2.x to a computer wireless and download new firmware, modified to your liking. The logging and parameter frameworks provides APIs for getting and setting data in the Crazyflie 2.x live, even when you are flying! All software, firmware as well as clients on the computer is open source and the source code is available for you to play with as you like.
You probably also want a gamepad to fly the Crazyflie 2.x when connected to the computer.
A lot can be achieved with the Crazyflie 2.x and the Crazyradio 2.0 only, but for advanced development JTAG/SWD access to the platform is useful. The Debug adapter kit enables you to connect your normal JTAG/SWD debugger to the Crazyflie 2.x to set break points, single step and so on when debugging.
The expansion ports on the Crazyflie 2.x enables you to connect more or less any hardware you like. When prototyping the Breakout deck is useful as you can use it to connect your Crazyflie 2.x to a bread board and easily debug your hardware design. When satisfied with the design you can transfer it to a Prototyping deck for a more permanent implementation. If you want to take it even further, why not manufacture a deck PCB and add Female deck connectors.
What to buy:
The Crazyflie 2.x is fun to fly as is but adding the LED-ring deck and flying in the dark adds a new dimension. The RGB LEDs lets you chose any colour and with some coding any light sequence can be displayed, for instance controlled by the on board sensors. Why not take photos with an open shutter of a moving Crayflie 2.x and paint in the dark?
What to buy:
The LED-ring deck can be used to display light in any color and the Buzzer deck can make sounds, useful for giving the user feedback. For automated implementation it can be very handy to indicate when the system is ready, error states or similar.
What to buy:
The BigQuad deck is used to control a bigger quad copter frame with a Crazyflie 2.x. Remove the motors on the Crazyflie, add the BigQuad deck and mount it on a bigger frame. Connect the motor controllers (ESCs) for the brushless motors of the frame to the BigQuad deck and you are ready to go. You get the full ecosystem of the Crazyflie 2.x but super sized.
What to buy:
Note: the bigger frame, brushless motors and ESCs are not included
The Qi deck gives the Crazyflie wireless charging capabilities. The battery is automatically charged when the Crazyflie 2.x is placed on top of a wireless charger, no need to connect a cable.
If large volumes of data needs to be recorded when flying, the Crazyradio 2.0 might not have sufficient bandwidth in some cases. The Micro SD card deck adds access to the filesystem of a SD card and enables storage of any data.
The SD-card deck can be used to store configuration data for a Crazyflie. An example could be an autonomous implementation where the Crazyflie is not connected via radio. The configuration can be written to a SD-card in a computer and the SD-card is transferred to the Crazyflie before it is started. This is also a way to separate configuration from hardware/firmware and avoid flashing different firmware to Crazyflie individuals.
Flying a quadcopter like the Crazyflie manually requires some skill and practising. By adding the Z-ranger deck V2 or Flow deck V2 the Crazyflie gets more information about its motion and can assist the pilot.
The Z-ranger deck V2 measures the distance to the ground and can be used to automatically stay at a constant height, while the pilot can focus on the position.
The Flow deck V2 takes it even further by also detecting the motion of the Crazyflie relative to the ground. This enables a flight mode where the pilot tells the system which direction to go rather than the tilt of the quad copter, by releasing the controls the Crazyflie simply stays hovering on the spot.
Currently assisted mode is only support when flying using a computer and gamepad, not with a mobile device.
What to buy:
Note: gamepad is not included
The Multi-ranger deck measures the distance to objects forward/back/left/right and up. It can be used for obstacle avoidance, mapping a room or games where the Crazyflie 2.x “bounces” between the walls of a room. Combine with a Flow deck V2 to measure the distance to the floor as well and support autonomous flight.
The Crazyflie is great for education, from younger kids getting acquainted with robotics and computers up to university level.
With the STEM drone bundle the Crayflie 2.x can fly autonomously using the Flow deck and it can be controlled from a remote computer using simple python scripts, perfect for getting started with robotics. For higher education, students can for instance re-implement the controller algorithms or similar for a real world robotics exercise. They can even bring the equipment home for extended studies and insights.
What to buy:
The STEM ranging bundle contains everything in the STEM drone bundle with the addition of the Multi-ranger deck . The Multi-ranger deck makes it possible to interact with the Crazyflie 2.x or use it to map a room.
What to buy:
For fully autonomous flight the Crazyflie must get position data from an external source, the internal sensors are only good for one or a few seconds of flight. When the Crazyflie has more position information it is possible to control it by using commands to tell it how to move or where to go, either from an internal progam or from an external computer.
There are a number of option of how to provide position information and they all have different properties.
With the Flow deck V2 the Crazyflie gets the distance to, and the relative motion relative to the surface under it. With this information it can hover in one spot or follow a trajectory. The advantage of this solution is that it does not require any external systems and comes at a very good price.
Since the position information is relative the Crazyflie does not really know where it is and any motion will be based on the starting position. Further more the position will drift over time, but in most cases autonomous flight can be maintained up to a minute.
What to buy:
The Lighthouse positioning system is based on the Lighthouse base station. It offers good accuracy and very good precision tracking. The Crazyflie pose is calculated in the Crazyflie itself with the Lighthouse positioning deck , which allows to develop completely autonomous flight. The precision is in the millimeter range and the accuracy in the decimeter range. The lighthouse positioning is well suited to implement tracking in small indoor space.
What to buy:
With the Loco Positioning system the Crazyflie calculates its absolute position in space, and it is all done in the Crazyflie! With the absolute position it always knows where it is and since the position estimation is done in the drone it is also possible to fly truly autonomously without a connection to an external computer. The location precision of the loco positioning system is about +/-10cm.
What to buy:
Positioning systems that use external cameras (often called MoCap) such as solutions from Qualisys or Vicon can be used to measure the position of a Crazyflie with high precision. In these systems the position is calculated in an external computer and either the position or commands for pitch/roll/yaw/thrust must be sent to the Crazyflie in real time via radio. Depending of the camera system and its configuration the location precision of a camera motion tracking system can be down to millimeters.
What to buy:
Swarm flight with the Crazyflie is similar to autonomous flight with the added complexity of positioning multiple drones simultaneously and making sure they move along trajectories that avoid collisions. There are some support in the system for swarms but this requires a lot of understanding and at least some coding, depending on solution.
Again, a key to swarming is the positioning technology and its properties.
The lighthouse positioning system is a good fit for swarms since it offers high precision and the position is acquired in the Crazyflie itself. This removes the need to setup an extra high-reliability low-latency link to transfer all the Crazyflie positions from a more traditional external tracking system.
What to buy:
The default mode (Two way ranging) of the Loco Positioning system supports positioning of only one Crazyflie so to position multiple Crazyflies the system must be switched to the TDoA mode. The TDoA mode works like an indoor GPS system where the Crazyflies only listens to positioning information from the anchors which makes it possible to position a large number of drones. Due to the nature of TDoA the position estimation works best in the space inside the anchors (the convex hull) and we recommend using 8 anchors for TDoA.
Camera based systems such as solutions from Qualisys or Vicon can track many markers simultaneously. To identify individual Crazyflies different physical configurations of markers can be used on each individual or an external system can keep track of the motion of markers to understand which drone that is connected to a marker. Again the position is calculated in an external computer and either the position or commands for pitch/roll/yaw/thrust must be sent to the Crazyflies in real time via radio. There are frameworks (for example Crazyswarm2) written by the community to handle these types of system and large swarms.
What to buy:
We do not sell Motion Capture systems, however some accessories are dedicated to it like the
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