Labbook IMAV

March 20, 2026

• The Motion tracking system of the Crazyflie is based on the Qualisys cameras.
• Found the box with the spare-parts of the Crazyflie. Two important extensions:
  • The CrazyFlie-Flow v2 deck
  • The CrazyFLie-AI deck
• For the Loco deck we printed the STL model, from 3Dmodels.

March 19, 2026

• Should try step-by-step.
• Gives the same error as yesterday: with the CrazyFlie ID added, the Dongle is found, still in line 13 of drivers/crazyradio.py it goes wrong.
• I read somewhere that after a firmware flash the CrazyRadio 2.0 works like a CrazyRadio AP. Should try Building firmware.
• The package manager uv cannot be installed with apt, followed the install instructions of the UV project.
• Also apt install just and snap install just didn´t work. Yet, with uv tool install rust-just it works (cross-platform install instructions).
• The build instructions all worked fine, it fails on west flash. I is missing the probe-rs program.
• The red light of the CrazyRadio is flashing, so it is in bootloader mode.
• The firmware I build was version 5.4.0, just like the official release, so dropped that one on the drive. The USB-drive directly disappeared, and the light went white.
• Tested the step-by-step: Yeah, I'm connected! :D.
• Also the synchronous logging (step 2a) works: [337690][]: {'stabilizer.roll': 0.5144103169441223, 'stabilizer.pitch': -0.8400380611419678, 'stabilizer.yaw': -58.93551254272461}
• Asynchronous logging (step 2b) gave 5 seconds of roll, pitch, yaw updates.
• Step3 sets parameter (estimator). Would be cool to change the color of the LED. Changing group to 'led´, name to 'bitmask' indeed lights up a green led opposite the blinking red light
• Next is the Step-by-Step: Motion Commander.
• Unfortunatelly, the flow deck is not attached. Without a flow deck, the drone will drift fast. Luckely the Lighthouse is such flow deck.
• On the autonomous flight page, also the Loco system is mentioned as experimental setup.
• How to mount those extensions are described in this compatibility pdf. Note that there are also STLs available for a horizontal mount on top (also for the Loco deck). The AI-deck is also possible, but the camera is looking upward (ceiling map!)
• Should check other crazyflie equipment I have. Sure that I have the AI-deck.
• Note that there is a ICRA@40 paper on this localisation with the UWB sensor.
• It is a paper with github code.
• This autonomous_sequence.py uses an estimator / commander, yet no explicit Flow deck.
• For the AI-Deck example fpv.py the required hardware is listed on top. Seems that lower level hover commands are given.

March 18, 2026

• Assembled the Flapper Nimble+, following the instructions.
• Performed my first flight, with the Crazy Fly Android app. After 4 flights the battery was depleted. Didn't hear start-up beebs, nor battery warning beeps. Should also mount some nets at the ceiling.
• Watch How to fly a Quadcopter video.
• Did not buy a transmitter.
• Should try the control the Flapper with the Crazyradio 2 dongle.
• Checking CrazyFlie Eco-system.
• The loco system can also be combined with ithe roadrunner (old product), which allows to localize your equipement instead of your drone.
• From the laptop, there is an option to use a python interface, or ROS2.
• Lets start with python client.
• First test the CrazyRadio2.
• Following the installation instructions , started with PowerShell for nb-ros.
• Installed Zadig tool.
• Plugged in the CrazyRadio, which is visible as mount D:.
• Yet, I don't see the CrazyRadio in the list of devices. Under Options there is list-devices. When switching off the option Ignore Composite Parents the CrazyRadio 2 shows up. The device has already a driver (usbccgp v 10.0.26100.7705), not sure if I should overwrite that with libusb-win (v1.4.0.0)
• Installation of the cfclient looks simpler for Linux, switch to Ubuntu partition.
• The documentation points to the github of the crazyflie-lib-python (including Lighthouse), but the client can be found at crazyflie-client-python.
• Did also here a development install with pip install -e ..
• When starting cfclient, I see some warnings:
  INFO:cfclient.gui:Disabling STL printouts
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputreaders:Input readers: ['linuxjsdev', 'pysdl2']
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputreaders:Successfully initialized [linuxjsdev]
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputreaders:Could not initialize [pysdl2]: No SDL2 support on Linux
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Found interfaces: ['leapmotion', 'wiimote', 'zmqpull']
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Could not initialize [leapmotion]: Leap Motion library probably not installed (No module named 'leapsdk')
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Could not initialize [wiimote]: Missing cwiid (wiimote) driver No module named 'cwiid'
  INFO:cfclient.utils.config:Dist config read from /home/arnoud/git/crazyflie-clients-python/src/cfclient/configs/config.json
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input.inputinterfaces:Could not initialize [zmqpull]: ZMQ input disabled in config file
  INFO:cfclient.utils.zmq_led_driver:ZMQ led disabled in config file
  INFO:cfclient.utils.zmq_param:ZMQ param disabled in config file
  INFO:cfclient.gui:If startup fails because of "xcb", install dependency with `sudo apt install libxcb-xinerama0`.
  INFO:cfclient.utils.input:Using device blacklist [(VirtualBox|VMware|keyd virtual pointer)]
  
• The client is not working yet. Two problems to be troubleshooted:
  • The CrazyRadio should be visible as radio from Select interface. The group was there, maybe change the read/write of the device.
  • Connected one of the UGV Rover to my laptop, not sure if this works. The Input Map Xbox mode 2 and 4 at least give the trust on the left knop.
• Looking at usb-permissions.
• Still the radio is not visible after setting the rules. Trying a reboot.
• Reboot didn´t help. In the stdout of cfclient I see:
  INFO:cflib.drivers.cfusb:Looking for devices....
  INFO:cflib.crtp.prrtdriver:Initialized PRRT driver.
  WARNING:cfclient.ui.main:Cannot find a Crazyradio Dongle
  
• From the dmesg it seems that device /dev/ttyACM0 is used, although it is part of the dailout group, instead of plugdev. Changed the permissions of /dev/ttyACM0, no longer get a warning on the Crayzradio Dongle, but still not see the interface.
• Experimented with an earlier version of the CrazyRadio on October 14, 2013, but under Windows, and only a UART "Hello World" example.
• Going into the lib-examples. console.py, which also gives Exception('Cannot find a Crazyradio Dongle')

March 9, 2026

• The MRS also organizes yearly a UAV summerschool, see 2025 programme.

March 2, 2026

• The CrazyFlie also supports Motion Capture systems like Optitrack, but just with a simple mounting deck.

February 27, 2026

• Checked Chapter 9 (Aerial Robotics) from IEEE RAS University
• Nice description of Aerodynamics, no simulation or hands-on assignments (yet).
• Should continue with section 9.2

February 24, 2026

• The DronEdu proposal is based on the format of the AiRobo project, which organizes a summerschool and a book on Ai & Robotics.
• The project had actually its inaugural AiRobo conference Dec. 2023, so is already running for three years.
• The project is described in a paper presented at World Conference on Educational Media & Technology.
• The final conference of AiRobo will be in October 2026, in Nancy, France. No call for papers yet.
• The AiRobo book seems also not finished yet. It has five chapters, including verification and complex algorithms.
• The most robotic publication from the consortium is A Case Study in Generating 3D Maps with Collaborative Robots, where a Velodyne point-cloud is loaded into a Pepper robot.

February 20, 2026

• The Boson-nighttime dataset is good benchmark for Satellite and Thermal images. See Table 2 from this overview paper. The extended dataset (69 Gb + 121 Gb) is studied in this RAL paper (Oct 2024).

February 5, 2026

• Looking for Drone books at Packt publishing.
  • Drone Development from Concept to Flight (April 2024) - hardware oriented
  • Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino (Feb 2018) - also hardware oriented - yet including a person following code
• Other publishers:
  • A First Course in Aerial Robots and DronesA First Course in Aerial Robots and Drones. (2022) Concentrates on Avionics.
  • DRONE AI: “Building Intelligent Drone Systems with Machine Learning” (Apr. 2025) also covers ML and CV, but couldn't find it with the publisher.
  • Intelligent Autonomous Drones with Cognitive Deep Learning: Build AI-Enabled Land Drones with the Raspberry Pi 4, which also covers Sense & Avoidance, and even SLAM & Navigation (ROS Noetic based). Textbook with github code (empty).

February 3, 2026

• For a future drone project, I checked the work of Ivano Malavolta from the VU. He published in 2025 a paper on the resource usage of 2D SLAM algorithms, but based on ROS1 (and with Cartographer 2016 as most modern method).

Previous Labbook

• IMAV Labbook 2025
• IMAV Labbook 2024
• IMAV Labbook 2023
• IMAV Labbook 2022
• IMAV Labbook 2020
• IMAV Labbook 2019
• IMAV Labbook 2018
• IMAV Labbook 2017
• IMAV Labbook 2016
• IMAV Labbook 2015
• IMAV Labbook 2014
• IMAV Labbook 2013
• IMAV Labbook 2012
• IMAV Labbook 2011

Related Labbooks

• Camiel Verschoor's Bachelor thesis log
• SmartInside Labbook 2011
• SmartInside Labbook 2010
• Nick Dijkshoorn Master thesis log
• Martijn van der Veen's Bachelor thesis log
• Robrecht Jurriaans' Bachelor thesis log
• Carsten van Weelden's validation log