Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Discussions and questions about the Crazyradio
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chris838
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Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:26 pm

Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by chris838 »

Hey guys,

I just bought a Crazyflie 2.0, having fun controlling it over Bluetooth with my Android phone but now I'd like to test out the Crazyradio PA dongle.

It seems to connect OK but the link quality is terrible. With the Flie directly next to my laptop it hovers around 100%, then as soon as an object gets in the line of sight it drop to 0% with the following error:

Connection lost to radio://0/28/250K: Too many packets lost.

Even picking the Flie up is enough to break the connection. And even with no obstructions, I can't maintain a connection at anything over 1 or 2 m away.

Surely the connection is supposed to be more robust than this? Is there something I am doing wrong?

I'm running the client on my Macbook Air. I haven't actually plugged a controller in yet, just running the software.

Any help would be appreciated guys, cheers! :)
chris838
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Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:26 pm

Re: Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by chris838 »

Just upped the radio bandwidth to 2M, now it works like a charm. Never mind!
chad
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Location: New York, USA
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Re: Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by chad »

If you live in a WiFi saturated area (like an apartment complex or such) you might want to find another 2.4GHz channel as well. Since you're using Mac OS X, it's pretty easy to do with built-in tools. The tools changed a bit for 10.10 but it's still the same idea. Just scan for the best channels and use one of them.
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adjavaherian
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Joined: Fri May 22, 2015 4:18 am

Re: Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by adjavaherian »

I seem to to be having the same radio quality issues. The link is really bad and drops on any movement. Same thing at 250K, 1M, 2M all seem to be the same shakyness. I used the CF 2 configure dialog to change the radio channel as suggested by @chad, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I live near Sutro Tower in SF, so that may be a problem, but I should be able to find a stable channel, no? Do I need to program a new channel in firmware, or just use the config? I've updated all the chips with the latest bins built from git repos too.

Thanks!
adjavaherian
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Re: Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by adjavaherian »

I think its actually the antenna. Looks like its the same poor signal with or with out the included rp-sma male 7db. I think its busted, I'll try to find another one.
adjavaherian
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Re: Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by adjavaherian »

I went out and got two replacement tp-link antenna and had the same results! Then, started trying to re-flash the CR and realized that I used CR 0.53 bin as opposed to the 0.53-PA bin. If you have the PA, you need to use this one! My bad! https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyradio- ... e/releases. Link is really good now. Got a full battery flight and signal up to 30 feet away. Will try the original antenna after re-charge, but I'm pretty sure the FW was the problem.
arnaud
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Re: Poor signal quality with Crazyradio PA and Crazyflie 2.0

Post by arnaud »

Yes I can confirm that flashing the wrong firmware will greatly affects the range. The reason is that if the power amplifier of the Crazyradio PA is not activated it behaves as a very good attenuator instead. Hence limiting the range.
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