quadrotor

noun

quad·​ro·​tor ˈkwäd-ˌrō-tər How to pronounce quadrotor (audio)
plural quadrotors
: a drone (see drone entry 1 sense 2) deriving lift from four separate rotors each oriented about a vertical axis : quadcopter
The University of Zurich and Intel Labs published their research in Science Robotics Journal … describing how they enabled quadrotors to fly autonomously through unknown and complex environments at high speeds using on-board sensing and computation.Matt Hamblen
The relatively simple and now quite pervasive quadrotor design for drones emphasizes performance and manufacturability …Evan Ackerman

Examples of quadrotor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web By itself, a quadrotor of hopcopter’s size can stay airborne for about 400 seconds, while Hopcopter can hop continuously for more than 20 minutes. IEEE Spectrum, 12 Apr. 2024 Longer term, the idea is to have a single policy that can adapt to different environmental conditions, as well as different vehicle configurations, meaning that this could work on all kinds of flying robots rather than just quadrotors. IEEE Spectrum, 8 Feb. 2024 Drones with four rotors, called quadrotors, outperform birds in open spaces, per the statement. Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Nov. 2023 O_o [ Pollen Robotics ] Inertial odometry is an attractive solution to the problem of state estimation for agile quadrotor flight. IEEE Spectrum, 22 Sep. 2023 The quadrotors are capable of far better performance than pilots normally take advantage of. IEEE Spectrum, 31 Aug. 2023 This paper presents a quadrotor prototype of this concept and the design details and realization in practice. Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum, 2 June 2023 Extensive flight experiments on the quadrotor are conducted inside multiple narrow tunnels to validate the planning framework as well as the robustness of the whole system. IEEE Spectrum, 26 Aug. 2022 The researchers used a 92x92x29 mm Crazyflie 2.0 quadrotor that weighs just 27 grams, equipped with a light reflector and an array of controllable RGB LEDs. IEEE Spectrum, 25 Sep. 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'quadrotor.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

quad entry 5 + rotor

First Known Use

2007, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of quadrotor was in 2007

Dictionary Entries Near quadrotor

Cite this Entry

“Quadrotor.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quadrotor. Accessed 5 Nov. 2024.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!