Bitcraze Forums

HI crazyfliers!

I decided as an hobbyist to rewrite the UAV article on Wikipedia, to grasp a comprehensive scope about how the UAV sytems work. I am currently busy with the radiocommunication part, and would enjoy getting noob-level information.


Is the dongle an RF front-end? Which elements does compound it? How far is it from a Digital Signal Processor? What frequency range does it cover? What kind of modulation/demodulation is used (PWM, PPM, PCM, PSK,ASK,FSK, OFDMA, ...)?

I understood that the receiver supports Bluetooth LE and enhanced Shockburst. How far is the Crazyflie radio reveiver from supporting other 2.4GHz packet radios such as wireless mobile communication with Open System Interconnection (3G, LTE-A, other 4G), or even cognitive radio with Embedded Wirelesss Interconnection which would allow for automatic detection and demodulation of signals? As I saw GPS and Wifi extension boards how much is the receiver away from demodulating satellite/GNSS and Wifi waves itslef?

Welcome to the forum Maxzor!

Most of the information you can find on the wiki or in the nRF51 datasheets but to speed it up a bit I'll answer the simple questions.

The nRF51 is not an SDR radio however the radio base band definitely use a lot of signal processing. It can cover 2.4 - 2.5 GHz and uses GFSK modulation.

As for 3G, LTE, GPS etc it won't be possible, with SDR technology it might be possible though.

Thank you Tobias!

Have you also any input about how far the Crazyradio is from pairing with a classic 2.4GHz GFSK transmitter?