This short guide describes some basic usage and concepts of the Crazyflie. It's intended as an introduction that's useful before flying for the first times.

The Crazyflie is controlled from a computer using an imput device as control and a radio dongle to send control data to the quadcopter. [insert fancy image here]

Currently the only input controller supported is the Playstation 3 gamepad. For more information see the UI page. The Crazyflie has 4 different controls: Pitch, roll, yaw and thrust.

Changing the pitch and roll will make the quadcopter change orientation and thus change the direction that it's moving in. Tiling the quadcopter forward will make it go forward and the same applies for every other direction.

[insert image showing pitch/roll and “front” orientation]

Changing the yaw will make the quadcopter spin. Changing the yaw is normally not a good idea since this will also change what direction is forward for the quadcopter.

[insert image of yaw and “front” orientation changing]

The thrust is used to control the altitude of the quadcopter.

The frequency used communication is based on 2.4 GHz. For every quadcopter it's possible to set a channel between 0-128 (?) that will be used for communication. This means that once the channels is set for a quadcopter you will have to specify the appropriate channel when communicating with it.

The Crazyflie is contructed without a separate frame, it uses the PCB as a frame and simply attaches four motors to it. This means that the weight of the platform is very low and on most impacts it simply bounces of objects. If you are unlucky either propellers or motors might break when crashing. If so have a look at our troubleshooting page for some basic troubleshooting and repairs.

• Place the Crazyflie on a stable surface (the floor is the best)
• Power it on by pressing the button
• Wait until the green LED shows that a bias has been taken
• Connect to the quadcopter using the computer application (make sure you have the correct channel set)
• The red LED will now start flashing indicating that the radio communication is working
• Use the controller to control the movement of the quadcopter
• Fly around :)

For more tips on flying take a look at the tips and tricks page.

The quadcopter is charged using USB. You can either connect it to the USB port on a computer or on a USB charging block.

The Crazyflie has four LEDs mounted, two blue, one red and one green. The two blue LEDs indicate that the system is powered and the red/green shows operation.

When USB is connected:

• Charging: Green LED blinking at 1 Hz
• Fully charged: Greed LED steady lit

When USB is not connected:

• No sensor bias taken: Green LED flashing at 0.75 Hz
• Sensor bias taken: Greed LED flashing at 2Hz
• Radio communication: Red LED blinks for every packet received. When the red LED starts blinking slower this indicates that the radio reception is getting bad
• Charging needed: Red LED steadily lit