Boeing’s drone “base station” concept could be located on rooftops, even attached to utility poles. It would allow swarms of low-cost drones to carry out missions over long durations.
John Vian, a research fellow at Boeing, says the station's main applications are likely to be civil and commercial—used for firefighting and search-and-rescue, for example—but the patent has a decidedly military slant. "The unmanned aerial vehicles may monitor for undesired activity… [such as] the placement of an improvised explosive device in roadway."
“With good engineering design, I don’t see major challenges for making this system functional,” says Boeing Commercial Airplanes Senior Research Engineer Emad Saad.
In a combat situation, the station could also reload the drone’s weapons.