Chapter 2. Getting Started with Multicopters

A multicopter is a flying robot resembling a wagon wheel—without the wheel. It has a central hub with electronics, power, and sensors, onto which are mounted arms that hold propellers to provide lift. The number of arms gives the name: a tricopter (trirotor) has three arms, a quadrocopter or quadcopter (quadrotor) has four, a hexacopter six, and an octocopter eight. There are other variations, but these are the most popular setups.

They’re also called multirotors, which arguably is the correct term, but I’ll stick to multicopters because that’s used more often on the Internet, where you’ll find ...

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