The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has announced tests of drones in urban areas as well as outside the pilot’s line-of-sight, possibly paving the way for operations such as the aerial delivery of packages as proposed by companies like Amazon.com.

FAA administrator Michael P. Huerta announced Wednesday a new Pathfinder Program under which the agency has partnered with three U.S. companies to explore three key types of unmanned operations.

PrecisionHawk, a drone manufacturer, will be surveying crops in rural areas using unmanned aircraft flying outside of the pilot’s direct vision, while BNSF Railroad will test the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to inspect their rail infrastructure beyond visual line-of-sight in isolated areas, Huerta said at a conference of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.

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