U.S. Looking to Use Small Ships as Drone Bases

Hope to increase surveillance capabilities

The US military is planning to use fleets of small ships as platforms for unmanned aircraft to land and take off.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) said it needed to increase its airborne "surveillance and reconnaissance".

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known as drones, are commonly launched on land - but deploying them at sea is harder because they need to refuel.

They currently require large aircraft carriers with long runways.