Quadcopters and other helicopter-style drones can take off and land vertically with pinpoint precision, but they aren’t as fuel efficient or as fast as fixed-wing drones. On the other hand, fixed-wing aircraft normally require either catapults or relatively long runways to get up to speed before taking off. A spin-off company from the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich is trying to provide the best of both worlds with its eponymous Wingtra drone.
