During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Firmware/software/electronics/mechanics
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t.yoneda
Beginner
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:03 am

During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Post by t.yoneda »

Hello!

I test 10 crazyflies swarming.
when 10 crazyflie are on swarming, some crazyflie crash or lose balance at the same time.
the timing of these event is random.

movies: (Google Drive)
movie1
movie2
movie3

this is the flight area environment.
the red area is the flight range of the crashed or unbalanced crazyflies
area.png

my questions
1. why did the crash and unbalance happen at the same time?
2. How can I know the cause of the problem?

Regards,
kimberly
Bitcraze
Posts: 1050
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:13 am

Re: During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Post by kimberly »

Hi!

Thanks for the videos!

It is a bit difficult to see where these crashes come from... It can be perhaps due to bad batteries, wind of the propellers of the other drones or perhaps you are flying to close to the top of the lighthouse basestations. But let's figure it out!

Here are some questions.

- Do you know which controller are you using? PID or Mellinger?
- The bright open door in the back, is that direct sunlight?
- Are the crazyflies running on the latest release of the firmware?
- What are you using to control them? A pythonscript, crazyswarm or are you using the app layer.
t.yoneda
Beginner
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:03 am

Re: During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Post by t.yoneda »

Hi, kimberly!
Thanks for reply.

The output of crazyradio-pa is set to the lowest setting (P_M18DBM)

1. I use high_level_commander and upload polynomial trajectory.
2. The video was taken in 15:00~19:00. it is sunlight and fluorescent light.
DSC_0044.png
3. all crazyflies and lighthouse decks are flushed the 2021.03 firmware from cfclient
4. I used crazyswarm of crazyflie-lib-python to control them
kimberly
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Re: During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Post by kimberly »

Thanks for your answers!



1- I actually mean another controller, the high level commander is the setpoint handler, the controller is what make sure that those setpoints are met. Here is the documentation to explain the whole stabilization loop..

You can check this with the cfclient by going parameter and checking stabilizer.controller, but this could also possibly be switched in run time by crazyswarm... Here are some instructions to try the PID controller in Crazyswarm

2- That should be okay but it might improve if you close the door.

3- Good!

4- So I'm not exactly sure if the crazyflie-lib-python package is used by crazyswarm directly. But did you mean that you use Crazyswarm OR crazyflie-lib-python? In which situations are you observing your problem?
t.yoneda
Beginner
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 3:03 am

Re: During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Post by t.yoneda »

I'm sorry for my misunderstanding.
I don't use CrazySwarm and only using crazyflie-lib-python.
kimberly
Bitcraze
Posts: 1050
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:13 am

Re: During swarming, some crazyflies crash or unbalanced at the same time.

Post by kimberly »

Alright! That is good to know.

So probably you based your script on the hl-commander-swarm.pyor synchronizedSequence.py? If you still have anywhere in the python script where you use activate_mellinger_controller, either comment it out or put it to False.

Then try to fly again and see if it improve anything.
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