The systems to implement drone-like 'flying qualities' [sic
] are not particularly challenging given the state of the art. What makes it a challenge is how to manage, test, and validate all of the potential failure modes both in a conventional helicopter and ones added by the incorporation of new sensors, actuators, processor(s), code, etc. So far it's still more cost-effective to have a bio-mechanical primary actuator that include attitude and rate sensing, optical sensors, audio i/o and real-time adaptive/reconfigurable control laws...or as you might know it, a 'pilot', to manage the stability augmentation and failure modes. For the time being, anyway
Nauga,
the primary motivator