Get started with development

Firmware/software/electronics/mechanics
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gvoyse
Beginner
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri May 24, 2013 6:30 pm

Get started with development

Post by gvoyse »

Hi there,

I'm new to this but would like to develop some stuff for the Crazyflie. I'm particularly interested in state estimation and some sort of autopilot. I figured out how to fork and clone the code from Bitbucket but I'm getting at bit lost at how to progress from there. I don't have a good grasp on the overall structure of the project so I'm not sure what to change. I looked through the wiki and noticed the structure of the Python API is unfinished. I gather that the crazyflie-pc-client is written with this API in python and is probably what I will need to deal with.

I've downloaded the VM and messed around with Eclipse for a bit but still don't understand the general structure. In fact, when I started up the VM today, Eclipse didn't show the projects any more. I'm not sure what happened there but that's just a little problem that I will work on.

I'd appreciate any help/suggestions, especially with speeding up development.

Thanks!
marcus
Bitcraze
Posts: 659
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:02 pm
Location: Sweden
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Re: Get started with development

Post by marcus »

Hi,

Yes, the crazyflie-pc-client is written in Python. There's the actual GUI part and the library. The library can be used to create new applications and there's more info on it here.

There's some information about the architecture of the firmware here but it's not very extensive.

Basically the only thing that is sent to the Crazyflie to control it from the PC are the target values for roll/pitch/yaw/thrust. So if you would like to pilot the Crazyflie using openCV or similar it would be sufficient to create an application on the PC. Anything else, like adding sensors or adding functionality like reading of the pressure sensor or magnetometer would have to be added to the firmware.

/Marcus
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