Swarm robotics has undergone rapid evolution and is now used in real-world applications. At the center of this exciting journey is the Crazyflie. Although small, its capabilities make it ideal for swarming applications in research, education, and prototyping.
Small and Safe for Indoor Use
The Crazyflie 2.1+ is a nano-quadcopter that weights only 29g. Crazyflie swarms are safe to interact with and can fly in confined spaces like labs or classrooms. If the maximum recommended payload of 15g is not enough for your application, the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless is a suitable alternative, as it has a recommended payload of 40g. These two platforms are compatible, allowing them to cooperate within a mixed swarm of your preference.
Setting Up a Crazyflie Swarm
Transitioning from a single Crazyflie to a swarm setup requires certain adjustments. Depending on the amount of data that you want to transfer to and from your Crazyflies, you might need to use more Crazyradio 2.0 dongles. We recommend 3-4 Crazyflies per radio but under ideal conditions each one can handle up to 15 drones. To get the most out of your swarm, you will also need an external positioning system. This could be a Lighthouse positioning system, a Loco positioning system or a Motion Capture system. This allows each Crazyflie to know its absolute position in space. A very interesting swarming project is Crazyswarm where they managed to fly a swarm of 49 Crazyflies using 3 Crazyradios and different positioning systems.
Available Swarming Frameworks and Examples
To make your introduction to a Crazyflie swarm smoother, our python library contains a swarm class. It allows the user to control each drone in the swarm simultaneously, sending commands either in parallel or sequentially. The library also includes examples that demonstrate the capabilities of a Crazyflie swarm.
For users interested in exploring advanced decentralized swarm schemes, we support firmware that enables peer-to-peer communication. This is at an experimental level and has been used for the decentralized brushless swarm demo and for the ICRA 2025 demo.
Getting Started
Interested in building your first swarm? Explore our swarm bundles featuring multiple platforms and positioning systems that suit your research or development needs. If you are new to the Crazyflie ecosystem, make sure to follow the step-by-step swarm tutorial to better understand the setup process, communication flow, and control mechanisms involved in operating a drone swarm.