Installation

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

Ubuntu	Python	ROS 2
22.04	3.10	Humble
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

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

Install dependencies

pip3 install rowan nicegui

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 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

Set up your ROS 2 workspace
Then install the crazyswarm2 stack (replace <DISTRO> with your version of ROS, namely humble or jazzy):

sudo apt-get install ros-<DISTRO>-crazyflie*

To prepare your workspace, see “Custom ROS Package” section below.
Clone the Crazyswarm2 repository

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

Now build the 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.
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 flash the latest release (we tested version 5.1).
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 .
Set up software-in-the-loop simulation (optional)
This currently requires cloning the Crazyflie firmware of the latest tested release (2025.02) and building the Python bindings manually. In a separate folder (not part of your ROS 2 workspace!),
git clone --branch 2025.02 --single-branch --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:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

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

Custom ROS Package

In order to use Crazyswarm, it is best practice to use a custom ROS package that contains all necessary config files as well as your user scripts / ROS nodes.

Create a new package

mkdir -p ros2_ws/src
cd ros2_ws/src
ros2 pkg create --build-type ament_python --license MIT --node-name hello_world crazyflie_test

Replace hello_world.py with https://github.com/IMRCLab/crazyswarm2/blob/main/crazyflie_examples/crazyflie_examples/hello_world.py
Add <depend>crazyflie_py</depend> to package.xml
Copy config files crazyflies.yaml and motion_capture.yaml from https://github.com/IMRCLab/crazyswarm2/tree/main/crazyflie/config into the config folder

Add launch/launch.py with the following content

import os

from ament_index_python.packages import get_package_share_directory
from launch import LaunchDescription
from launch.actions import IncludeLaunchDescription
from launch.launch_description_sources import PythonLaunchDescriptionSource

package_name = 'crazyflie_test'

def generate_launch_description():

    crazyflies_yaml_path = os.path.join(
        get_package_share_directory(package_name),
        'config',
        'crazyflies.yaml')
    motion_capture_yaml_path = os.path.join(
        get_package_share_directory(package_name),
        'config',
        'motion_capture.yaml')

    return LaunchDescription(
        [
            IncludeLaunchDescription(
                PythonLaunchDescriptionSource(
                    [
                        os.path.join(
                            get_package_share_directory('crazyflie'), 'launch'
                        ),
                        '/launch.py',
                    ]
                ),
                launch_arguments={
                    'crazyflies_yaml_file': crazyflies_yaml_path,
                    'motion_capture_yaml_file': motion_capture_yaml_path,
                }.items(),
            ),
        ]
    )

In setup.py, include the following lines as part of the data_files array:

(os.path.join('share', package_name, 'launch'), glob('launch/*')),
(os.path.join('share', package_name, 'config'), glob('config/*'))