That's fine if they're flying around a facility or a farm, but these drones could also be useful for monitoring long-range infrastructure, like railroads or gas pipes, if they weren't limited by battery life. Now SkyX has installed its first xStation, a recharging dock that can be placed periodically along a route to extend the range of its drones almost indefinitely.

The system is designed to work with the company's SkyOne UAV, an autonomous hybrid aircraft that takes off vertically before leveling out into fixed-wing flight. Currently, the SkyOne has a range of about 100 km (62 miles), but in a long-range application like inspecting pipes, it might be effectively only making use of half that distance, before it has to turn around and go home to recharge.