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Swiss Post, the national postal service company of Switzerland, will test robots in three cities for the delivery of food and medicine, next month. The small robots are slow moving on walkways and are designed to avoid obstacles such as pedestrians, animals and cars. The robots, which come from Starship Technologies, were already tested in the UK and Germany.

They will be tested in Washington as well this fall.

Postmen will not vanish very soon in Switzerland. “We do not believe in replacing individuals,” said Claudia Pletscher, director of innovation at Swiss Post. The company is curious to see how customers and pedestrians react to the use of robots in deliveries.

After several months of testing, the Swiss Post will decide whether robots will be used regularly.

The company will initially test five robots. They cannot go through more than three or four miles at a time.

Swiss Post is known for the strong interest shown towards new technologies. The company previously tested deliveries using drones and autonomous buses.

Surgery performed by robotic arms capable of unbelievably fine movements, toys that mimic the appearance shockingly faithful to all kinds of animals, which are all still robots, large and small, from robo-chickens, to enormous animatronic dinosaurs. Military robots, robots used in rescue, robots sent into space exploration missions … the robots are among us, we live near them, sometimes without realizing how frequent is their presence and, in recent years, the daily presence of a constant companion robot living in a man’s house, is no longer a fiction projection but a more widespread reality.