Coles is teaming up with a Google spinoff to deliver groceries by drone. 

Wing - a startup owned by Google's parent company Alphabet - has signed a deal with supermarket chain Coles to deliver 250 types of products by drone. 

A hub in Canberra has been stocked with the 250 top-selling Coles items, which will be ordered through a specially-designed app. 

Wing packers will put together the order and fix it to a drone, which flies to the delivery address using automated technology.

“The drone system is a type of autonomous system that maps the routes and schedules the flight,” Wing's managing director Simon Rossi says.

“So we have live pilots monitoring the drones, but to all intents and purposes the system is autonomous.”

Pilots will oversee up to 15 drones at once. Wing has already run similar tests with take-away chains around Canberra and Logan in Queensland.

However, there are some major logistical hurdles and privacy concerns that companies must overcome before drone delivery becomes a viable business.

Its tests so far have relied on exemptions from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), and there are rules affecting when and how it can deliver.

Drones are only allowed to fly within 10 kilometres from their delivery hubs, and only during the daytime.

“We don't fly at night. We do fly in the rain and we can fly in fog and mist, but there is a point where the vision becomes limited, and that we would have to not fly in certain circumstances,” Mr Rossi said.

Additionally, the drones can only carry 1.5kg at a time.

“So that means that the drone delivery service is probably not the one that's going to be doing the weekly shop,” Mr Rossi added.

One this topic, Sydney University is currently looking at the economic viability of drone deliveries with industry group iMove.