4 ms·

I worked in this space for years. The answer is no. If you evolve a multirotor design to be more and more efficient you will end up with fewer, larger rotors, u

I worked in this space for years. The answer is no. If you evolve a multirotor design to be more and more efficient you will end up with fewer, larger rotors, until the time comes that you require variable pitch to have sufficient control bandwidth. At which point you have a helo.

ActorNightly 3y ago
You can take it a step further and have a counterweighted single blade propeller, which is the most efficient. That being said, this is only aero efficiency. Once you start to add electric motor efficiency, things get interesting. To generate thrust with lower number of blades you need to have large torque torque to put into the prop , which means the motor has to be a low Kv (Kv = rpm/volt, and a low Kv means a high Kt where Kt = torque/amp), to keep the current lower to lessen electrical power losses. Or use a reduction gearbox. Both of the above necessitate a bigger package and more weight, which requires more thrust, and so on. There is a place in this design space where having multiple rotors is actually more efficient for the overall flight envelope.