Will the AI Deck be produced in the future now that Greenwaves is liquidated?

[ignatious-p]

As Greenwaves doesn't seem to be in business any more, I am wondering whether Bitcraze will continue to produce the AI Deck expansion boards for the Crazyflie.

The primary advantage of the AI Deck, upon its initial release, was its exceptional low energy consumption when handling demanding tasks like computer vision. At that time, its integrated GAP8 microcontroller represented the cutting edge in low-power solutions for such workloads. Back when it was released it was the state of the art in low power microcontrollers for this kind of workload.

However, considering that in 2025 there are other low power alternatives to the GAP8 such as the Alif Ensemble E1 and also the difficulties that others are facing with using the GAP8 chip (including SDK issues, hardware issues and toolchain issues), I wonder whether it is time for a refresh to the AI Deck.

[gemenerik]

Hi Iggy. While Greenwaves is no longer active, we can still produce more AI-decks. We're also working on a successor with a newer microcontroller, though it may be a while before we share more details. In the meantime, we’d love to hear any feedback or other suggestions you have for a future version.

[r-bt]

I'm wondering can you share which micro controller you are planning to move to?

[gemenerik]

We are considering the STM32N6

[marcbishara]

@gemenerik Do you have an update on your future direction with the AI deck? I want to use STM32N6 with crazyflie 2.1+ brushless so it would be great if you can confirm that such a deck would be available in the future as I can just focus on doing my work on the dev kit in the meantime.

[gemenerik]

Can't make any guarantees on this sadly. We're exploring the STM32N6 as a potential direction but it's very early stages and it could be a long time before anything materializes. I wouldn't plan your project around it.

[r-bt]

@gemenerik Are there any updates with this? I'd like to try integrate a camera and some embedded AI into some Crazyflies. Given the cost it'd be great to know how long you plan to keep supporting the existing AI-decks / the timeline for when a successor deck might be released? Is it still possible to develop for the existing AI deck or should it be considered EOL and I should wait for the successor?

[gemenerik]

Hi! To clarify: we're in very early stages on a successor - it will take a serious amount of time.
The current AI-deck is actively supported and we have a track record of supporting products long-term, so it's definitely not EOL.
My recommendation: if you want to build something now, go ahead and get the AI-deck. Waiting for a successor could mean waiting a very long time.

[r-bt]

Awesome, I haven't used it before so I guess I'm just confused what no longer works now with the autotiler download being broken?

[gemenerik]

The autotiler is a code generation tool that is used to automatically create memory management code for GAP8. It was commonly used in examples and documentation, particularly for deploying neural networks but also for other algorithms.
With the auto-tiler download broken, any examples or documentation that reference it won't work as written. You won't be able to use those examples to generate the necessary code.
For neural network deployment specifically, DORY is available as an alternative, though it's not a direct replacement and has a different workflow. We don't currently have examples for using DORY with our products.

[r-bt]

Right, but is it still possible to deploy neural networks with the autotiler and do you have any examples for doing this (that don't use DORY)?

[gemenerik]

If you already have the autotiler, it still works and you can use it with the examples. But since the autotiler is no longer available for download, if you're starting fresh (which it sounds like you are?), you won't be able to use those examples. That's why I mentioned DORY as an alternative. DORY does have its own examples, but as a research tool they may not be as polished or easy to follow.