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cpgxiiitoday at 3:46 AM0 repliesview on HN

If you look at larger multi-copters, 6 and 8 are quite common since they allow for some redundancy, allowing for safe landing and/or continued flight following the failure of one of the rotors.

As other replies note, 4 is the simplest arrangement mechanically and control-wise, as the control math is quite simple (just rotor speeds/torque) and the only moving parts are the fixed-pitch rotors.

The minimum, as seen in real (and model) helicopters, is either two (approximately) constant-speed rotors with swashplate control, or one (approximately) constant-speed rotor with swashplate control and one tail rotor, either with (approximately) constant speed and variable pitch, or with variable speed. At the scale of real helicopters, two rotors may often be more powerful and efficient (e.g. CH-47, V-22) but the size and weight of the gearbox needed to transmit so much power is a significant contribution to the weight and cost of the helicopter, and thus having a single main gearbox is much lighter and cheaper. The notable difficulties of shaft drive between multi-rotor helicopters, particularly with distributed engines (see a number of V-22 issues) strongly discourages helicopters with more than 2 rotors.