Engineers in England want to give drones an even bigger task: Fix an entire city. The University of Leeds recently won 4.2 million pound grant (about $6.5 million USD) from the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to create a national infrastructure for so-called “self-repairing cities,” where small robots will identify and repair everything from potholes to streetlights to utility pipes.

The team, led by civil engineer Phil Purnell and including researchers from University College London and the Universities of Birmingham and Southampton, is currently working on three drone designs. One set of robots will be responsible for “perch and repair,” meaning they will perch, like birds, on tall structures and make small repairs to things like streetlights. The “perceive and patch” robots will not only automatically inspect, diagnose, and repair potholes in the road, but will also prevent future ones from forming. And “fire and forget” drones will monitor and repair utility pipes as needed.

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As the researchers expected, not everyone is excited about the potential of drones. ... That’s why the team also includes social scientists, economists, and geographers to help track the social, environmental, political, and economic impacts of the new technology. Purnell also emphasized that the purpose isn’t to replace humans, but to have drones do the dirty—and sometimes dangerous—work, freeing up humans to do more the more intellectually stimulating tasks in which they can gain skills to work across industries.