The development of quadcopters has stalled until very recently, because controlling four independent rotors has proven to be incredibly difficult and impossible without electronic assistance. The swashplate mechanism was needed to allow the helicopter to utilize more degrees of freedom, but the same level of control can be obtained by adding two more rotors. With four independent rotors, the need for a swashplate mechanism is alleviated. The complicated design of the rotor and swashplate mechanism presents some problems, increasing construction costs and design complexity.Ī quadrotor helicopter (quadcopter) is a helicopter which has four equally spaced rotors, usually arranged at the corners of a square body.

In order to produce a torque the angle of attack is modulated by the location of each rotor in each stroke, such that more thrust is produced on one side of the rotor plane than the other. However, these configurations require complicated machinery to control the direction of motion a swashplate is used to change the angle of attack on the main rotors. The two rotors can also be arranged with one main rotor providing thrust and a smaller side rotor oriented laterally and counteracting the torque produced by the main rotor. These can be arranged as two coplanar rotors both providing upwards thrust, but spinning in opposite directions (in order to balance the torques exerted upon the body of the helicopter). Conventional helicopters have two rotors. A helicopter is a flying vehicle which uses rapidly spinning rotors to push air downwards, thus creating a thrust force keeping the helicopter aloft.

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