Switzerland’s postal service has begun sending parcels with unmanned drones.
Swiss Post, airfreight company Swiss World Cargo and drone developer Matternet have developed the drone Matternet One, designed for transportation.
“The drone has an extremely light construction and is capable of transporting loads of up to 1 kilogram over more than 10 kilometres with a single battery charge,” Swiss Post said.
The drone is controlled by an app.
It follows low-altitude flight paths 50 to 100 metres above the ground using a determined route by a cloud-based routing system.
The initial tests are to determine the machines’ delivery abilities and will run until the end of July as testers say commercial use of the drones is unlikely to be used until another five years.
Swiss Post says that by then drones will have a place within emergency situations.
“This could involve bringing supplies to an area that has been cut off from the outside world following a storm. Another realistic possibility is the urgent transport of consignments with the highest priority, such as laboratory tests,” they said.
Drone technology is being adopted worldwide and Amazon and Deutsche Post have both trialled drone deliveries.
If you like this article you may be interested in “China to Implement Drones to Ensure No Cheating on School Exams”.
