Flying robots designed to crash, recover

Adam Klaptocz found that many flying robots, though performing well in laboratory conditions, struggled with the dangers of the real world. His work, at the Lab of Intelligent Systems at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, has created a flying robot that is able to robustly interact with unexpected environments (e.g. crash into walls), right itself, and keep on flying. He accomplishes this, as seen in the video, by giving the robot a soft outer "rollcage" that protects the aerodynamic surfaces and flight computer. The robot was also given a simple servo-actuated self-righting mechanism.