It isn't quite as ambitious in its plans as the likes of Amazon, but you can add Swiss Post to the list of organizations currently experimenting with parcel delivery by drone. Switzerland's national postal service announced in the spring that it was partnering with Swiss WorldCargo and California-based Matternet to test the feasibility of drone delivery, and it's now confirmed that it's begun those tests to determine how it can best use the technology.

In a statement, Swiss Post says that while conventional parcel delivery is "not realistic" anytime soon due to both the sheer volume of packages and legal constraints on the use of drones, it does suggest that "specific applications will be realistic within five to ten years."

Those, it says, could include the delivery of urgent items to areas cut off by weather, deliveries of things like medicine to people in isolated areas, and delivery of particularly high-priority packages like laboratory samples.

To start with, Swiss Post's tests will use a number of Matternet ONE drones, which are capable of carrying packages up to one kilogram ten kilometers or more on a charge. As it notes in its statement, however, the eventual use of drones for real-world deliveries hinges as much on regulatory changes as on technical advances, which could well dictate exactly what they'll be used for.

[via PhysOrg / AFP]