UPS has partnered with the German tech company Wingcopter to build a fleet of rugged, high speed delivery drones. The drones will be based on a model designed by Wingcopter, which can travel at speeds of up to 150mph and has a range of 75 miles. The drones can also endure a variety of difficult weather conditions, including wind speeds of up to 45mph. The agreements marks the first external partnership for UPS's Flight Forward program, which is focused on developing a range of drone delivery options, according to a report in TechCrunch. 'Drone delivery is not a one-size-fits-all operation,' UPS's Bala Ganesh said.

UPS Flight Forward (UPSFF) is collaborating with German drone-maker Wingcopter to develop the next generation of package delivery drones for a variety of use cases in the United States and internationally. UPSFF is a subsidiary of UPS dedicated to drone delivery. UPS chose Wingcopter for its unmanned aircraft technology and its track record in delivering a variety of goods over long distances in multiple international settings. "Drone delivery is not a one-size-fits-all operation," said Bala Ganesh, vice president of the UPS Advanced Technology Group. "Our collaboration with Wingcopter helps pave the way for us to start drone delivery service in new use-cases. UPS Flight Forward is building a network of technology partners to broaden our unique capability to serve customers and extend our leadership in drone delivery."

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. We already posted about the Atlas doing parkour video, which Marc Raibert first showed at IROS earlier this month; he also showed this video, which is just as interesting (if not quite as dramatic), since it shows SpotMini in what could be its first realistic commercial application. We have begun field testing the Spot robot for commercial usage around the world.

This September, delivery drones will begin to fly the friendly skies of Vanuatu. And this isn't a one-shot demonstration, like many of the stunts we've seen from the likes of Amazon and Google. This is an attempt to make drones part of the medical infrastructure. The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, a string of 83 volcanic islands spread over 1600 kilometers (995 miles), has just issued a "request for tender" to drone companies around the world. The companies are invited to submit bids for bringing vaccines to scattered hospitals and health clinics on three islands.