CrazyS: A Software-in-the-Loop Simulation Platform for the Crazyflie 2.0 Nano-Quadcopter

This chapter proposes a typical use case dealing with the physical simulation of autonomous robots (specifically, quadrotors) and their interfacing through ROS (Robot Operating System). In particular, we propose CrazyS, an extension of the ROS package RotorS, aimed to modeling, developing and integrating the Crazyflie 2.0 nano-quadcopter in the physics based simulation environment Gazebo. Such simulation platform allows to understand quickly the behavior of the flight control system by comparing and evaluating different indoor and outdoor scenarios, with a details level quite close to reality. The proposed extension, running on Kinetic Kame ROS version but fully compatible with the Indigo Igloo one, expands the RotorS capabilities by considering the Crazyflie 2.0 physical model, its flight control system and the Crazyflie’s on-board IMU, as well. A simple case study has been considered in order to show how the package works and how the dynamical model interacts with the control architecture of the quadcopter. The contribution can be also considered as a reference guide for expanding the RotorS functionalities in the UAVs field, by facilitating the integration of new aircrafts. We rel5,eased the software as open-source code, thus making it available for scientific and educational activities.