Spinning Quadrotor: Hover Thrust Augmentation with Passive Lifting Surfaces

Aniketh Parkala; Harikumar Kandath

cs.ROAug 24, 2026

Spinning Quadrotor: Hover Thrust Augmentation with Passive Lifting Surfaces

Authors: Aniketh Parkala, Harikumar Kandath

Organizations: Robotics Research Center (RRC), IIIT Hyderabad, India

Abstract

Conventional multirotor aerial vehicles actively suppress yaw rotation during hover, expending power to maintain a fixed heading despite the fact that yaw regulation is not required for force balance or altitude control. This paper challenges that paradigm by proposing a spinning quadrotor architecture that intentionally operates at a sustained yaw rate, converting power traditionally spent on yaw regulation into useful aerodynamic effects. A dynamic model of the spinning quadrotor is developed, analysis for low Re range is conducted to choose an airfoil for lifting surfaces. Preliminary hardware tests show a 22% reduction in thrust required. These findings suggest that intentional yaw rotation, rather than being suppressed, can be exploited as a design mechanism for efficient and robust multirotor flight.

Figures & tables

Fig. 1: CAD model of configuration 2. All motors are canted 10 degrees

Fig. 2: CAD model of configuration 1, with only 2 motors canted on non-wing arms (exaggerated motor tilt for visualization)

Fig. 3: Airfoil characteristics comparison

Fig. 4: Optimal operating-point performance score as a function of Reynolds number for candidate airfoils, using per-Reynolds normalization.

$r$ (m)	$V$ (m/s)	Re ( $\times 10^{4}$ )	Foil	$\alpha$ ( ∘ )	$c$ (m)	$C_{l}$	$C_{l}/C_{d}$
0.40	3.2	2.2	SD7037	8.6	0.10	0.83	9.3
0.45	3.6	4.6	Franky	10.5	0.19	1.00	6.3
0.50	4.4	8.5	Franky	10.0	0.29	1.79	39.6
0.55	4.8	8.8	Franky	10.0	0.27	1.79	39.6
0.60	5.2	9.0	Franky	10.0	0.26	1.79	39.6
0.65	5.6	9.1	Franky	10.0	0.24	1.79	39.6

TABLE I: Radial operating points and section performance used to guide the wing design.

Fig. 5: Wing planform (all dimensions in mm)

Fig. 6: Wing designed for spinning-hover operation.

Fig. 7: Motor yaw torque and wing drag torque with component breakdown. The residual torque remains below 1% at steady state.

Fig. 8: Stacked area plot of vertical force contributions during steady hover. The rotating wings supply 67.2% of the lift, with motors providing the remainder.

Fig. 9: Time histories of yaw rate and altitude showing convergence to steady spinning hover.

Fig. 10: Electrical power breakdown illustrating a 57% idealized reduction relative to a motor-only baseline.

Fig. 11: ANSYS Fluent static pressure contour around a wing cross-section, illustrating the local pressure field under the aerodynamic effect of the other wings

Fig. 12: Configuration I: Orthogonal wing–motor layout with asymmetric motor tilt.

Fig. 13: Configuration II: Fully tilted motor layout with distributed wings. Representative flight tests for all configurations are shown in the supplementary video available at: https://youtu.be/q07RIcLkxVw .

Configuration	Mass (g)	DSHOT	Motor Thrust (g)	Wing Lift (g)	% Weight Lifted	Per-Wing Lift (g)
Stationary 4-Wing	960	1809	960	0	0.0	—
Spinning 4-Wing (+10°)	960	1487	758	214	22.3	53.5
Stationary 2-Wing	658	1339	658	0	0.0	—
Spinning 2-Wing	658	1133	511	147	22.3	73.4

TABLE II: Hover performance metrics across spinning and stationary configurations.

Fig. 14: Comparison of thrust production and hover efficiency for spinning and stationary configurations under identical payload conditions. Each reported value represents the mean over $N=5$ independent hover trials, each consisting of a 10 s steady-state window. Error bars in the figures denote one standard deviation across trials.

Fig. 15: Experimental Roll, pitch stability, yaw rate and DSHOT history of configuration 1 and 2

Method	Total Lift (N)
BEMT Simulation (9.27 rad/s)	5.27
CFD (MRF, $k$ – $\omega$ SST)	4.50
Hardware (experimental results)	2.10
per motor thrust (configuration 2)	2.35

TABLE III: Comparison of wing lift predictions across modeling and experiment.

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Oct 12, 2026J/K move · Enter open · S save

Aerodynamic Promptness of Tilting-Propeller Multirotors

Antonio Franchi

Robotics and Mechatronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. · Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.

Aerial Robotics

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This work develops a geometric theory of aerodynamic promptness for multirotor platforms whose propeller directions depend on a smooth orientation-mechanism configuration. The actuator state consists of the actual signed propeller speeds and the mechanism configuration, and the nonlinear actuator map retains both the signed-quadratic propeller law and the configuration-dependent thrust directions. Constant direction maps represent fixed propellers, while shared dependence on mechanism coordinates represents mechanically coupled tilts. A Riemannian metric on the product actuator manifold compares propeller accelerations and orientation-mechanism rates through physically interpretable scales. Composing the actuator-map differential, the musical isomorphism induced by this metric, and the dual differential defines a task-rate authority map from wrench covectors to wrench-rate vectors. In fixed task coordinates, the square root of the determinant of its matrix defines aerodynamic promptness. Positive promptness is equivalent to local wrench-rate surjectivity, while the associated spectrum resolves directional authority and conditioning. The same construction yields the metric horizontal inverse, the orthogonal projector onto wrench-fiber directions, and task-preserving internal motions that regulate promptness without changing the instantaneous wrench. The construction is related intrinsically to dynamic feedback linearization and specialized to the independently tilting, radially arranged Holocopter and Voliro architectures, clarifying how their established allocation and rank constructions fit within the same actuator-manifold geometry.

Abstract

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Aerodynamic Promptness of Tilting-Propeller Multirotors

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