Singapore Tests Drone Delivery For Snail Mail

Drones can be used for a variety of purposes, the military uses them for reconnaissance and eliminating threats in a rather clandestine fashion whereas your average joe may use them to capture some stunning imagery. Companies like Amazon propose using drones to significantly cut down on package delivery times and this idea is gaining support. Singapore’s national postal service has started testing drone delivery for snail mail.

Singapore Post has delivered its first package via drone in the first test, the drone successfully traveled a distance of about 1.2 miles over the ocean to a nearby island where it delivered a package containing a t-shirt and a letter to a postal employee who was wait for the drone to arrive.

It’s certainly not the only national postal service to try drones for delivery, Switzerland has already done that, but this doesn’t stop Singapore Post from claiming that this is the world’s first mail delivery by drone with recipient authentication.

The city-state’s postal service plans on using this technology on routes that are difficult to access, such as nearby islands, enabling it to free up postal employees which can then be put to work on busier routes.

While the postal service doesn’t provide a timeframe for when it’s going to fully launch the service, it does have plans to integrate drone deliveries with a locker service. For now though drone deliveries within the dense urban environment of Singapore are off limits.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Drones