Installation

Crazyswarm2 runs on Ubuntu Linux in one of the following configurations:

Ubuntu

Python

ROS 2

22.04

3.10

Humble, Iron

24.04

3.12

Jazzy

Warning

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is experimentally supported but you’ll have to use usbipd-win. This program will link the crazyradio directly with WS, but beware of bugs. Check out their WSL connect guide.

Warning

Avoid using a virtual machine if possible: they add additional latency and might cause issues with the visualization tools.

First Installation

  1. If needed, install ROS 2 using the instructions at https://docs.ros.org/en/jazzy/Installation.html.

  2. Install dependencies

    sudo apt install libboost-program-options-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev
pip3 install rowan nicegui

    Then install the motion capture ROS 2 package (replace DISTRO with your version of ROS, namely humble, iron, or jazzy):

    sudo apt-get install ros-DISTRO-motion-capture-tracking

    If you are planning to use the CFlib backend, do:

    pip3 install cflib transforms3d
sudo apt-get install ros-DISTRO-tf-transformations

  3. Set up your ROS 2 workspace

    mkdir -p ros2_ws/src
cd ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/IMRCLab/crazyswarm2 --recursive

  4. Build your ROS 2 workspace

    cd ../
source /opt/ros/DISTRO/setup.bash
colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

    Note

    symlink-install allows you to edit Python and config files without running colcon build every time.

    Note

    If you install it for the first time, you will see a lot of warnings at first. As long as the build of the package finish, you can ignore this for now.

  5. Set up Crazyradio

    For the crazyradio, you need to setup usb rules in order to communicate with the Crazyflie. Find the instructions for that here in Bitcraze’s USB permission guide for Linux.

    You will also need to update the crazyradio firmware to the latest development branch to be able to use all features. For Crazyradio PA (1), follow these instructions. For Crazyradio 2, follow these instuctions to build the firmware and these instuctions to flash it.

  6. Update the crazyflies

    If this is the first time handling crazyflies it is always good to start with Bitcraze’s getting started guide.

    You can update each crazyflie firmware to the latest release via these instructions of the Bitcraze Crazyflie client .

    While you are at it, make sure that each crazyflie have an unique radio address which you can change in the client via these instructions .

  7. Set up software-in-the-loop simulation (optional)

    This currently requires cloning the Crazyflie firmware and building the Python bindings manually. In a separate folder (not part of your ROS 2 workspace!),

    git clone --recursive https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyflie-firmware.git

    First follow the instructions to build the python bindings from the bitcraze website. Afterwards, make sure that the bindings can be found in the python path:

    export PYTHONPATH=<replace-with-path-to>/crazyflie-firmware/build:$PYTHONPATH

    If you are working from an older version of the crazyflie-firmware (before tag 2023.02), then you will need to point to main folder of the repo by removing the ‘/build’ part.

Updating

You can update your local copy using the following commands:

cd ros2_ws/src/crazyswarm2
git pull
git submodule sync
git submodule update --init --recursive
cd ../../
source /opt/ros/DISTRO/setup.bash
colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release