> But to the best of my knowledge this hasn't been implemented anywhere, and today's drones simply fall out of the sky if one motor fails or its propellers are destroyed.
I'm a former Skydio[1] employee and our motion-planning & state-estimation teams implemented this on all our drones years ago. It wasn't completely fool-proof, but in many non-high-speed scenarios a loss of a motor was not catastrophic and the drone could 'emergency land' within a few meters of where it was flying. I wish I had proof for you but unfortunately no longer have access to any internal videos :)
I'm a former Skydio[1] employee and our motion-planning & state-estimation teams implemented this on all our drones years ago. It wasn't completely fool-proof, but in many non-high-speed scenarios a loss of a motor was not catastrophic and the drone could 'emergency land' within a few meters of where it was flying. I wish I had proof for you but unfortunately no longer have access to any internal videos :)
[1] https://skydio.com