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Robot Swarms with Crazyflie 2.1+

Robot Swarms with Crazyflie 2.1+ introduces learners to autonomous indoor flight, localization, and coordinated swarm behavior. Through hands-on activities, participants explore sensor-based navigation, optical flow, beacon-based positioning, and coordinate-driven flight using the Crazyflie platform. The course builds a practical foundation for operating and understanding autonomous aerial robots in structured indoor environments.

From Single-Robot Control to Swarm Coordination

The Crazyflie platform enables learners to move beyond basic piloting and into the domain of autonomous and coordinated flight. Participants begin by assembling and configuring a research-grade micro-drone, then progressively layer in sensing, control, and localization capabilities.

As the course advances, learners transition from operating a single drone to coordinating multiple drones using shared coordinate frames and centralized planning. This mirrors how swarm systems are commonly developed and tested in research labs and industry.

	Getting Started with Crazyflie 2.1+ Learners assemble and configure the Crazyflie drone, install and use the Crazyflie Client, attach sensing decks, update firmware, and perform stability and test flights. This unit emphasizes system familiarity, safe operation, and foundational flight concepts.
	Assisted Flight with Crazyflie 2.1+ Participants explore assisted flight modes such as altitude hold, hover, and position hold. Using onboard sensors and the Flow Deck, learners investigate optical flow, state estimation, and PID control, including how tuning affects stability and responsiveness.
	Swarm Coordination with Crazyflie 2.1+ Learners configure an indoor positioning system using Ultra-Wideband beacons and the Loco Positioning System. They then use coordinate-based navigation to fly waypoints, execute synchronized trajectories, and perform multi-drone swarm behaviors using centralized planning.

Why Crazyflie?

Crazyflie is a research-grade, open-source platform widely used in robotics labs around the world. Its small size, modular hardware, and precise indoor positioning capabilities make it ideal for teaching autonomy and swarm concepts safely and accessibly.

This curriculum leverages Crazyflie’s strengths to help learners understand not just how drones fly, but how autonomous robotic systems are designed, tested, and coordinated.

This material is based upon work supported by the Office of Naval Research under Contract Number N00014-23-C-2015. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Naval Research.

Required Materials