Author: Marcus

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Flying the Crazyflie with Leap Motion

  2013-08-12  |     |    4 Comments

The first time we saw the video for the Leap Motion we instantly thought “Wow, we have to fly the Crazyflie with this!”. So finally last week a fresh Leap Motion landed on our desk and we went to work. We were really happy to see that there was an SDK for Linux. Leap Motion listened to the community that thought that an early release of the code was better than nothing at all. The API is very nice to work with and you can easily get metrics for you hand (like elevation and roll/pitch). So we created a Leap Motion driver in the joystick layer that replaces the normal input device, and it’s flying! We are going to be honest, at first it wasn’t that fun. It was more the concept that was very exciting. But as we flew more and more it started getting really great! There’s just something magical about it :-)

You fly the Crazyflie using a single hand. Thrust is calculated using the elevation of you hand from the sensor, so holding your hand higher means larger thrust. Pitch/roll is controlled by tilting you hand the same way you want the Crazyflie platform to tilt. So tilting your hand forward tilts the Crazyflie forward. Lastly the yaw is controlled by rotating your hand in the X/Y plane (around the Z-axis). For thrust/pitch/roll the control values are absolute, but for yaw it’s the rate that you control (just like the normal controls in the Crazyflie client).

As a safety mechanism the Crazyflie will only respond if the Leap Motion detects 4 or more fingers. So holding your fist above the sensor does nothing, but the instant you open up your hand you can start to control the Crazyflie.

The code for flying with the Leap Motion is still on a development branch but if you are eager to try it then have a look at the instructions in the hacks section of the wiki for documentation on how to get flying! The plan is to merge the Leap Motion code into the main track once we are finished with the development.

Crazyflie and Leapmotion

Crazyflie distributors

  2013-08-05  |     |    Leave a comment

We are now all back from vacation, restarting the work on Bitcraze stuff. We are looking forward to play with the Leap Motion we just received…

The development is still going forward. Among other things the Android client development has greatly improved lately and we are hopefully getting closer to the first official binary release. We are also thinking of releasing a new version of the client and firmware as some functionalities and bug fix has been implemented since the last version.

After the second batch was finished we made the Bitcraze products available to distributors through the Seeedstudio Warehouse. Now we are really excited to see that our products have started showing up in distributor webshops around the globe. In order for our users to easily find local retailers we have compiled a list of distributors. There’s some lag between the time you start distributing our products until we get notified by Seeedstudio, so if you are not in the list of distributors drop us an email and we will add you.distributors

The Crazyflie and Android

  2013-07-15  |     |    1 Comment

Last year we quickly hacked together a client for Android to show that it was technically possible to use the Crazyflie/Crazyradio on the platform. It worked, but it wasn’t very good. After that not much has happened, until now. Thanks to contributions being made by fredg02, Sebastian Sams and bug tickets from Sascha Heymann, the hackish prototype we did is now turning into something that is actually usable. It’s still under heavy development but there’s already some new features. Here’s a quick run-down of what’s been added:

  • An external controller can be used instead of on-screen thumb sticks
  • You can scan for Crazyflies
  • The same flight control settings that are in the cfclient are now available (i.e advanced mode, X-mode, max roll/pitch/yaw and thrust)

So the Android client works with phones and tables that support USB host or OTG. Anything else? Well, there just happens to be an Android platform that even comes shipped with an external controller…the Ouya! So if you have an Ouya and a Crazyflie you can just side-load and you are ready to go! Since we are used to the PS3 gamepad we had some issues getting used to the Ouya controller. If you have the same issue you can pair your PS3 controller with your Ouya and use it instead!

Once the software becomes more stable an APK will be released, but until then the repository with the code and issue tracker can be found here.

 copter_ouya

Raspberry Pi pre-configured SD-card image

  2013-07-08  |     |    6 Comments

In order for users to be able to pilot the Crazyflie from platforms without a graphical user interface there’s now a headless client in the repository named cfheadless. It’s intended to be run the command-line and is still under development, but working.

The main reason it was made in the first place was to enable flying from the Raspberry Pi. The QT interface was very sluggish and it required all the QT dependencies to be installed. So the cfheadless client doesn’t depend on QT and doesn’t have a graphical user interface at all. For users to quickly get something working with the Raspberry Pi we prepared a pre-configured SD-card image that is based on the Raspian Wheezy. We didn’t remove anything from the image, we just added the things needed to fly the Crazyflie. It works out of the box with the Crazyradio and a PS3 controller. In order to switch to anther controller you will have to connect to the Pi and edit the configuration.

To use the image you have to edit the configuration if needed and then just connect your controller, power on the Crazyflie and lastly connect the Crazyradio. The cfheadless client will now automatically start and connect to the Crazyflie.

The image can be downloaded using this torrent or via direct download. The torrent is preferred since the direct download is limited to 6 simultaneous downloads. For more information on how to use the image have a look at the wiki page and if there’s any issues or suggestions drop by the project tracker at Bitbucker and add them. If you already have a Raspian image downloaded and running and you want to be able to use it with the Crazyflie then have a look at how we made the image or the hacks page with the original instructions.

Crazyflie and Raspberry Pi

The Crazyflie is back in stock

  2013-07-01  |     |    1 Comment

The Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter kits, the Crazyradio and all of the spare parts are now back in stock at Seeedstudio. Like we mentioned before there’s been some changes since the last batch. We have added the Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter Kit and Crazyradio as separate products and updated the design of the motor mounts to better protect the motors. All the new kits include the new motors mounts as well as replaces the old motor mounts as spare parts.

Since we made the Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter Kits available during the spring we have gotten a lot of requests from other distributors to be able to sell it locally. So now we have made all our products available in the Seeedstudio distributor warehouse. If you are interested in retailing the products have a look at the Seeestudio distributor page or if you already have an account just log into the warehouse and you can find our products in the Robotics/Crazyflie category.

 

Crazyflie bundle

Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter Kit bundle with Crazyradio
Image ©Johan Jeppsson

 

 

 

Summer time

  2013-06-24  |     |    7 Comments

So finally it’s getting warm and sunny outside (even in Sweden…) and it’s time to go out side and enjoy it while it’s lasts! This doesn’t only include flying the Crazyflie but also spending some time with our families and going on vacation. We have tried to plan everything so at least one of us is available to answer questions that might come up, accept pull-requests etc, but still it might take a bit more time than usual. And of course there will still be the Monday post!

If you happen to have some spare time during the summer and want a challenge, then have a look at the Crazyflie box… Have a great summer everyone!

Bitcraze VM 0.3

  2013-06-10  |     |    2 Comments

There’s an updated version of the Bitcraze virtual machine out. The VM has all the pre-requisites for using the Crazyflie/Crazyradio and also the full development environment for our projects. Here’s a list of the improvements from version 0.2:

  • Upgraded version to of Xubuntu to 13.04
  • Improved README and instructions inside VM
  • Updated to the latest version of repositories
  • Added script for updating all the project repositories
  • Added pre-configured JTAG debugging for Eclipse using BusBlaster
  • Added KiCad and the Crazyradio design files

More information on the Bitcraze VM can be found here and it can be downloaded from this link. If you don’t want to download our virtual machine but instead make your own then have a look at this guide on the wiki.  It details how to get Xubuntu running in VirtualBox with all the pre-requisites for the development environment.

We have finished cleaning up the Crazyradio design files and they are now added to a Bitbucket repo. The project includes a cache file with all the components from our library that we have used. Once we are finished with cleaning up the component library it will also be uploaded.

Lot’s of things happening

  2013-06-03  |     |    1 Comment

It’s been yet another week with lot’s of ideas, contributions and discussions. Here’s some of the things we’ve seen the last week:

And of course thanks to everyone that keeps updating the wiki and helping out in the forums!

Next batch in production

  2013-05-27  |     |    8 Comments

It’s been another busy week at Bitcraze. Unfortunately we are lagging a bit behind on pull-requests and such, but we are doing our best to catch up. Also development taking place in the forum has accelerated and we will try to summarize some of it next week.

The planning for the next batch is finished and it’s now going into production. Expected to be ready in the end of June. For this batch we have modified the motor-mounts to add some space at the bottom and also increased the size of the “stopper” at the bottom of the mount to keep the motor from popping out.

From now, as been requested, we will also start offer the parts of the kit separately: The Crazyflie 6/10-DOF, the Crazyradio and the antenna. Aside from this we will still be offering the previous kits and all the spare parts.

A new source version of the Crazyflie PC client has been uploaded to the Bitbucket page. Since this new version mostly fixes critical bugs related to mac, there’s no new version for the Windows installer.

For the next version of the windows installer we are looking at packaging and installing Crazyradio driver with the client. We are also looking at making Ubuntu packages accessible in a PPA as well as Fedora/OpenSuse packages. This would simplify the Client installation on Linux. ArchLinux already have a package in AUR  courtesy of Gergely Imreh.

Another week of fixes and contributions

  2013-05-13  |     |    2 Comments

It’s been another week with lots of stuff going on. Shortly after the Crazyflies were delivered things really started to accelerate. Now there’s lots of cool stuff going on and we are trying to keep up :-) Here’s a few things from the last week.

  • People have started looking at the pressure sensor that is mounted on the 10-DOF version. phiamo is working on a hover-mode using the pressure sensor. There’s more information and code in this post.
  • Contributions to the Mac OSX install instructions have been made and they are now usable.
  • Another frame has been designed by bscott and is uploaded on Thingiverse. No doubt, next on the Bitcraze shopping list is a 3D printer.
  • The USB3 issue on the Crazyradio has been fixed so there’s a new version of the firmware. If you don’t have any problems with this then don’t update, because there’s a slim chance of bricking the radio (see the wiki page). The firmware is available here and instruction on how to update it are here.
  • A nasty bug on Mac OSX has been reported. When loosing connection to the input-device the output will become 100% thrust and it will not stop until the radio looses connection. This issue has been fixed in the latest version from the repository.

The Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter kit 10-DOF is out of stock again but there’s still some 6-DOF units left. We are currently planning the next batch but until then there will be a few more units (~50) that will drop into the Bazaar.

In order to have a better overview of which problems that have been solved and which still needs attention in the Support forums we are setting up some guidelines, which will be done during the week. So if you are hanging around in these forums or you want to get some support, then please have a look at the instructions.

If you live in the south of Sweden and you are interested in the Crazyflie drop by Javaforum next Tuesday (21/5) where we will be presenting.