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From Robohub, an introduction to GimBall, a flying robot that can collide with objects seamlessly, from EPFL. Excerpt:

The concept
The inner frame comprises everything a flying robot needs to stabilize in flight: a coaxial motor, two control surfaces, the battery, an IMU and control electronics. In case of collision, GimBall’s spherical protective frame prevents obstacles from touching the inner frame and can passively rotate thanks to a gimbal system (hence the name). This way, the contact force does not affect the orientation of the inner frame, whose center of mass is also carefully centered. This allows the inner frame to always stay upright, and maintain the robot in stable flight.

A conventional platform will be strongly affected by collisions, because its orientation is disturbed. GimBall keeps the orientation of its inner frame stable thanks to the gimbal system. Note that this is a side-view of a collision in the vertical plane, but the principle remains the same from all angles, since the protective cage rotates around all 3 axes.