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If by "drones" you mean quadcopter type RC aircraft, the answer there is that a number of technologies got to consumer level

Brushless DC motors, strong injection molded plastics, PID control algorithms, rechargeable battery energy density, fast CPUs, communication protocols, maybe geolocation via GPS. Without any one of these (and probably 5 or 6 more) quadcopters wouldn't be feasible.

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It occurs to me to say injection molding of any plastic has gotten better probably due to numerical simulations of molten plastic. Injection molding parts of any type of polymer used to be a black art, requiring a lot of trial and error. Parts had simpler shapes and thicker walls in the 1990s than they do now. That's very important to making quadcopters light enough to fly, but still durable.

Agree with consumer level.

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