Control App

The most reliable mobile controller I found for this setup was LiteWing.

• App Store
• Google Play

The adjustable trim allows you to correct drift during hover without modifying PID parameters.

Firmware Setup & Flashing (macOS)

The ESP-FLY tutorial uses Windows for flashing. Below are the steps I followed to set up ESP-IDF and flash the firmware on macOS.

1. Install ESP-IDF

Install ESP-IDF v5.0.7 following Espressif’s official macOS setup instructions.

After installation, your ESP-IDF directory path should something look like:

~/esp/esp-idf-v5.0.7

2. Activate ESP-IDF Environment

# Navigate to ESP-IDF directory
cd ~/esp/esp-idf-v5.0.7

# Load environment variables
source export.sh

3. Clone this Repository

git clone https://github.com/themaxboucher/esp-drone.git
cd esp-drone

3. Build the Firmware

idf.py build

4. Flash the Firmware

idf.py -p <PORT> flash monitor

Replace <PORT> with the serial device associated with the ESP32 USB connection.

To list available ports:

ls /dev/cu.*

Flashing uploads the compiled firmware to the ESP32 and opens a serial monitor for debugging output.

Attribution

This project is based on the original ESP-Fly platform and firmware ecosystem.

Original Project & Tutorial

• YouTube Tutorial (Max Imagination):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_mZsiZcy7s

• Elektor Article: ESP-FLY – The Smallest ESP32 Drone You Can Build
  https://www.elektormagazine.com/labs/esp-fly-the-smallest-esp32-drone-you-can-build

Firmware Base

• esp-drone open-source firmware by Espressif Systems:
  https://github.com/espressif/esp-drone

Flight Control Ecosystem

• Crazyflie open-source drone platform (control architecture reference):
  https://www.bitcraze.io/crazyflie/

License

This project inherits the GPL-3.0 license from the original esp-drone firmware.

See the LICENSE file for details.