Imagine you’re running and you sprain your ankle. The pain makes you gingerly limp the rest of the way home. This is a great example of how nature adapts to failures in a system. The pain tells you: “If you continue running like normal, the injury will only get worse.” So you naturally adjust the way you run. Drones currently cannot do this with a worn-out propeller.

Researchers from Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University & Research have now demonstrated that a concept we learned from nature, which was originally developed to predict collapse in ecosystems, can also help detect when engineered systems are heading toward failure. This is crucial for ensuring drone and autonomous vehicle safety as they increasingly become part of everyday life.

“You can compare our approach to the way humans experience pain. After an injury, pain provides immediate feedback about our condition and helps us judge what actions remain safe,” says Jasper van Beers, a researcher at Delft University of Technology. “Machines generally lack this form of self-awareness. The new indicators, derived from real-time measurement data, offer a first step toward giving engineered systems a similar ability to recognize when they are approaching their limits.”