Release

There is a new fresh release of both the firmware and the python library and client! The last release (2022.01) was from 2 months ago but we already added quite some extra functionality so we wanted to make a snapshot of this before continuing on other priorities.

Kbuild on CF firmware

One of the biggest changes that you will notice, is that there is now a new way to configure your Crazyflie firmware before building it. The old config.mk is gone and you will now need to either automatically generate a config file or generate one with the menuconfig, of which kbuild is most known for. For more information, please read the blogpost about this latest change, for the exception that we do prefer the users to use ‘make cf2_config’ as instructed in the 2022.03 version of the repo documentation.

Platform support for Bolt

We now defined the Bolt as a different platform. That means that for each release, there should now also be a bolt flavor zip file, next to the cf2 and tag zips, as you can see in the release page. Moreover, if you want to build the firmware to be Bolt compatible, you would first need to do ‘make bolt_defconfig’ to generate the needed configs with kbuild. For more information of how to add your own custom platform, please check out these instructions.

2+ Lighthouse base stations (experimental)

For those that feel constrained by the max 2 lighthouse base station support in the firmware and client, this functionality is now part of the release. This blogpost will explain more about this, and it is still experimental in nature, as you would need to reconfigure the firmware with… you guessed it: Kbuild! Also the geometry estimation needs to be done as a separate python script as well all from the Crazyflie python library. No worries, if you still prefer using the cfclient, it still uses the old way of estimating if you click the button, but just remember that you would need to do something extra in order to get 2+ base station support.

New VM release

We were also made aware of a pretty big error in the bitcraze VM, namely that we still used the old git:// type url for github repositories. IN the new release of the bitcraze VM this should be fixed, so please download the new one, or fix it yourself in your current VM by changing the remote URLs of the github repos you are working on to https://.

We are thrilled to announce the new 2022.1 release of the Crazyflie firmwares, library and client! There have been a lot of bug fixes, polishing and new features and we are glad we finally get to share it with all of you.

Noteworthy features and fixes

The features and fixes listed here is only a subset of all the bug fixes and other additions we have done in the last six months. For a more complete view, please check the release notes on GitHub.


Crazyflie STM firmware — Main firmware

Release notes on GitHub


Crazyflie NRF firmware — Radio and power management

Release notes on GitHub

  • We now report the version of the NRF firmware on the Crazyflie console

Crazyflie Python library — The official Python API

Release notes on GitHub


Crazyflie Client — The Crazyflie PC client

Release notes on GitHub

  • Rework of the Parameters tab
    • To better show parameter documentation and to include persistent functionality
Image of the Crayzflie PC client with new parameter tab
New Parameters tab with filtering search and sidebar with more information about values

Documentation

Along with all the new features, bug fixes and general polish of our software we have also spent time making sure our documentation is up-to-date and relevant! You can check it out on our website. Do not forget to check out the individual repositories documentation. And the tutorial page has gotten some love this cycle, check it out!

Please go forth and install this new release and please file issues with any problem you find!

Where to get it?

The firmware images for the Crazyflie STM firmware and the Crazyflie NRF firmware should already be available through the cfclient. And if you want to download them yourself you can find them at https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyflie-firmware/releases.

The Crazyflie Client and the Crazyflie Python library are available through Pypi (The Python Package Index), to install them you can use the following commands:

$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade cfclient # to install or upgrade the Crazyflie client

$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade cflib # to install or upgrade the Crazyflie Python libraryCode language: PHP (php)

Happy hacking!