Tokyo - Most recent developments in the field of small autonomous drones seem to use quadcopters (four motors). Most small drones don't look like regular helicopters because the quadcopter design is mechanically more simple for small drones.
Small drones are less stable than an equivalent sized regular helicopter. On a regular helicopter the main-rotor blades adjust their pitch as they spin. The cyclic-pitch mechanism allows a regular helicopter to do this is complex and expensive. Quadcopters use four motors connected to four fixed-pitch propellers. This makes quadcopters more simple and less expensive than an equivalent sized helicopter. When helicopters are made larger it starts to make more sense, from a cost and complexity point of view, to have a single, more complex (variable-pitch) propeller and one tail-rotor. Quadcopters, and other small drones, require electronic stabilization for humans to fly them without constantly crashing. For a quadcopter to remain stable in the air it must indivdually adjust the thrust produced by each of its propellers. See also, www.aviationweek.com.
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