To paraphrase The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman": "Oh yes, wait a minute Mister Droneman (Wait) Wait Mister Droneman. Please Mister Droneman, look and see (Oh yeah) If there's a letter in your bag for me" Drones are a short-range technology. Many of today's all-electric small quadcopters can only fly for 20-minute bursts before needing to swap batteries or plug in again. To make delivery drones work, the drones will either need to fly only short distances, or they'll need places to recharge along the way. For Amazon, which seems determined to lead the field in drone delivery, the answer might come from a recently approved patent: docking stations for drones, installed on existing streetlights.

It sounds rather like a children's toy - modular'chiplets' that can be put together to form a robot. However, Darpa's latest project has one difference - its machine could kill. Darpa hopes to shrink traditional military machines into single'chiplets' to build a library of components to aid everything from smart drone building to instant language translation. Shown, an artist's impression of the components that could be shrunk onto a single chip. The system will create a library of custom and commercial'chiplets'--small-scale chips that individually embody a particular function, such as data storage, computation, signal processing, and managing the form and flow of data.

From striking aerial photography to monitoring hard to reach areas as part of search and rescue missions, the list of tasks that drones can do is ever growing. While most drones require a driver to control their movements from the ground, one new model can fly itself unaided. The Teal quad drone contains a supercomputer which allows it to fly autonomously as well as recognise images. The Teal quad is the brainchild of founder George Matus, who at only 18 years old, wanted to create a device that was'fast, versatile, smart and break the limits of what drones could do.' Mr Matus told MailOnline: 'In regards to flight speed, it depends on the environment, altitude, wind, and battery life, so we say 70 mph to cover all of that.' While this high speed could be seen as dangerous, on its website Teal states: 'Teal is built on both the hardware side and software side to make it as safe and easy as possible to fly, while still allowing mind-blowing manoeuvrability and speed.'

Amazon's Prime Air delivery drones already have a glaring problem: how do you keep them charged and sheltered when dedicated facilities are likely to be few and far between? The company has an idea. It recently received a patent for a "UAV docking station" concept that would offer a temporary perch for drones in need. If a drone runs low on battery or needs to take shelter from an impending storm, it would only have to travel to a station on top of a street light, cell tower, church steeple or another high-up location. The drone could even drop off a package for another drone, turning a delivery into an aerial relay race.

When you're buzzing through the air at 60 kilometres per hour, it can be hard to take in the view. But now drones can create highly detailed 3D maps as they fly, using just an ordinary video camera. The system, called Hydra Fusion and developed by researchers at Lockheed Martin in Canada, will make drones better at aerial surveillance. Hydra Fusion is based on a form of image-based mapping, or photogrammetry, known as "structure from motion". The procedure involves stitching together multiple images – in this case, consecutive frames of video footage – to form a detailed 3D map.

Facebook unveiled a new laser-based concept for high-speed internet that will bypass the need for dedicated wavelength spectra and government licenses that come with them. Published Tuesday in the journal Optica, the technique was developed by researchers at Facebook's Connectivity Lab. The team is exploring a variety of technologies, including high-altitude long-endurance planes, satellites and lasers." It calls its new concept, which also uses drone technology, free-space optical communication. Explaining their rationale behind turning to laser for data transmission, the researchers say in the paper: "While optical communications have become the de facto standard for high-throughput wired communication channels, microwave and millimeter wave carrier frequencies are still the standard for wireless links. However, the limited availability of spectrum restricts the data rates that can be achieved through these channels."

Sure, with a top speed of 85 mph, it is twice as fast as a DJI Phantom 4 and it will leave almost every consumer drone eating its dust. But its appeal goes well beyond air speed. Buying a drone typically means having a specific activity in mind. There are aerial photography drones, racing drones, follow-me around drones--it can all be a little overwhelming, particularly for someone who's new to UAVs. Teal wants to solve this problem with a modular machine you can tailor to suit to your exact needs.

Crucially, this isn't meant as a one-trick pony. On top of a 13-megapixel, 4K-capable camera, Teal packs NVIDIA's Tegra TX1 (a beefy processor for a drone) and a software platform that encourages third-party apps. If you can imagine a flight mode, you can probably implement it. There are built-in apps for command and control flying, racing and a follow mode like you see on some camera drones. Also, Teal promises support for future modules that add radar-guided avoidance, thermal imaging and vision-based positioning. If you suspect that this no-compromise design won't come cheap, you're right.

Kickstarter's Mine Kafon Drone campaign wants to use drones to wipe out landmines. A Netherlands-based Kicktstarter campaign wants to use drones to get rid of landmines in the next decade. The Mine Kafon Drone is an aerial vehicle that can map landmine-rich environments, do effective sweeping searches with metal detectors, and plant detonators before escaping to a safe distance--all without a single living foot touching the ground. It's a drone that could potentially save thousands of lives, with the body and chassis of something reminiscent of an Imperial Probe Droid. Still, the world would be a better place with a few hundred of these running around.

There are numerous obstacles retailers need to overcome before employing drones to deliver packages - and the UAV's lifespan is at the top of the list. However, Amazon seems to be headed in the right direction with an application that illustrates using'docking stations' for its autonomous carriers. The newly awarded patent that describes using tall structures such as lamp posts or churches that would allow the drones to recharge and continue on their route. Amazon's newly awarded patent that describes using tall structures such as lamp posts or churches that would allow the drones to recharge and continue on their route. The patent describes the use of the docking stations to make the drones fly longer routes, more accurately and provide the system with shelter during rough weather conditions.