Increase the Crazyflie 2.1+ stability

[Tdmuns]

Hello everyone,

I am a student from a German university. For my master's thesis, I'm dealing with a Crazyflei 2.1+. I want to stabilize the drone in a higher wind speed, by hovering or position hold. My requirement is to control the drone from a Python script from the client side and acquire a similar stability gained from the CfClient. If you have suggestions, ideas, or examples, please share them with me.

Thanks in advance

[ArisMorgens]

Hello @Tdmuns!

Your project sounds really interesting!

Based on what you described, a simple hover command will make the Crazyflie attempt to stay in place, resisting to any external disturbances. But, maybe, this isn't your goal.

Could you share more information on the methodology that you want to achieve this stability? Also, what hardware are you planning to use? This way, we can better understand the setup and have some more relevant suggestions.

[Tdmuns]

Hi @ArisMorgens,

Thanks for your response. I am using a wind generator for my experiments, which can generate wind up to 8 m/s. My requirement is to keep the drone hovering until the wind generator stabilizes at a constant wind speed. I tried to do this with the hover command, and the drone starts to drift with the wind during the ramping of the wind generator.

For the moment, I'm trying this with the flow deck, but I also have an idea to move to LPS if it gives better hovering.

[ArisMorgens]

Hello again!

We don't really have examples of flying with wind disturbance, but this paper might be useful for your project.

We have however experimented with a Crazyflie hovering at a fixed point in space using the Lighthouse positioning system. We displaced it by pulling an attached rope and, after releasing it, it flies to the initial position with high accuracy.

The Lighthouse positioning system as well as the Loco positioning system offer absolute positioning, since the Crazyflie's coordinates are expressed w.r.t to a global coordinate frame. On the other hand, the Flow deck offers relative positioning, since it tracks relative motion to the surface under the Crazyflie. In this context, I think the Flow deck is more likely to start drifting.

Also, keep in mind that while the Crazyflie's controllers are capable of managing noise, they haven't been optimized for windy conditions. So, making it hover with the default controllers might be tricky.

I hope this helps. Let us know if you need anything else.