Drones are typically quad or hexacopters that can take off and land vertically even in a stiff breeze. If you're talking about some other kind of drone then may

Drones are typically quad or hexacopters that can take off and land vertically even in a stiff breeze. If you're talking about some other kind of drone then maybe you could specify it. But compared to quad or hexacopter an auto gyro would have a lot more loiter time just as a fixed wing would, and it could come down vertically at least to a point, but would not be able to take off or land vertically. There is one particular brand of autogyro that can take off vertically by pre-spinning the rotor and then applying collective at the same time as disconnecting power from it. They tend to leap off the tarmac. But that is not the norm. Standard autogyros require a takeoff roll just as a fixing aircraft plane does. People often look at the rotor and think that it is like a helicopter but in fact it is more like a fixed wing aircraft in the sense that air must be passing over the wings / rotor in order to produce lift. That being said, an autonomous autogyro does sound very interesting. One could pre-spin the rotor with a typical brushless motor and then leave it unpowered during flight. It does require collective control to be able to do that but even hobby helicopters have collective and cyclic control, so adding just collective control seems very approachable.