Drones, specifically the electrically powered ones, have a couple of major Achilles heels that are their limited range, flight time, and payload. As far as delivery drones go, one can choose either to have range or payload but seldom both. In the arena of aerial photography and security surveillance, their limited flight time severely limits the type of scenarios in which they can be deployed. All these limitations stemmed primarily from their short battery life.

Thus here then lies the premise of project Hermes: A series of networked automated battery swapping stations so that drones on long flights are able to divert to them and swap out their depleted battery. The range of the drones are now effectively extended to wherever there are these swapping or resupply stations. For the surveillance side of things this means that a drone with an almost depleted battery can just land, swap its battery, and take off in mere minutes, thus having almost infinite flight time.