Is it possible to control the Crazyflie using acceleration commands?

[Disc13]

I would like to know if it is possible to control the Crazyflie directly using acceleration commands? If so, could you please point me to the specific function or API I should use?

[knmcguire]

I don't think we have, if you are talking about pure acceleration commands with nothing else as of a desired state included.

If this is a question wither to do this with ROS 2 or with any api that is possible, perhaps it is best to ask this question to the manufacturers of the Crazyflie directly: https://discussions.bitcraze.io/. I answered this question that was pretty close to what you are asking https://github.com/orgs/bitcraze/discussions/1225 but I don't know what the current status is of this moment

[Disc13]

I heard that in Crazyswarm2 there is an interface like send_setpoint(roll, pitch, yawrate, thrust).

Since my controller outputs desired accelerations, I was wondering whether it would be reasonable to approximate the acceleration commands by converting them into roll, pitch, and thrust commands, and then send them using this interface.

In other words, is it a common or recommended approach to map the desired acceleration to attitude (roll/pitch) and thrust before sending the command to the Crazyflie?

I would really appreciate any suggestions or best practices for implementing this type of control.

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[knmcguire]

Acceleration is definitely related to roll and pitch so if you have a safe environment to try that in or perhaps first in simulation I don't see why not. Just mind that quadcopter dynamic is quite complex so the relationship between roll-pitch and acceleration is definitely not a 1-1 relationship as there are many aspects involved.

But as long as your external controller has notice of the position / velocity of the crazyflie, I don't see why it wouldn't work? Just a bit of a disclaimer based on what I said here above.

[whoenig]

I usually integrate the acceleration commands on the host side to obtain position, velocity, acceleration setpoints. Then I use cmd_full_state with all three vector. The on-board controller will compute the desired rotation matrix.

One can also directly compute the rotation matrix from the acceleration using differential flatness, but I have not tried sending those angles to the drone myself. Equations: https://imrclab.github.io/kidyco/2nd_order/multirotor.html#geometric-controller (R_d, replace F_d with your desired acceleration).