Latest News: Aerotropolis Hosts Operation Miracle Mile – A Showcase of Medical Cargo Drone Delivery at Beaumont Taylor Hospital

The Detroit Region Aerotropolis community came together for a demonstration of advanced air mobility at the City of Taylor Beaumont Hospital on June 13th, 2022. The demonstration included Airspace Link, Mission GO, MEDC, Michigan Office of Future Mobility and Electrification, Taylor Beaumont Hospital, Detroit Region Aerotropolis, Wayne County, City of Taylor and others.

The drone delivery operation utilized Aerotropolis’s LAANC (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability – https://www.detroitaero.org/the-region/drones/) through its partnership with Airspace Link, Inc. (https://airspacelink.com/) to demonstrate the medical and economic efficiencies to be realized with advanced low-altitude airspace operations.

The drone operator, Mission GO (https://www.missiongo.io/), provided an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) solution for critical medical and commercial cargo to the team. Airspace Link identified the City of Taylor Beaumont Hospital as a UAS station/nest for base operations through their AirHub platform. Taylor Beaumont provided helipad access to Mission GO and the City of Taylor published an advisory of drone operations in advance of operation through the AirHub Connect platform .

The Taylor Beaumont clinical staff member loaded a medical box onto aircraft. Mission GO then flew the aircraft from helipad, in a repeated closed-circuit route, over open grounds east of helipad, for approximately 1 mile, and then landed back on helipad. The Mission GO payload manager unloaded medical box from aircraft and returned the medical box from aircraft to Taylor Beaumont staff.

Since January 2020, Detroit Aerotropolis, in partnership with the City of Taylor, has licensed the Airspace Link AirHub platform to establish and test a new low altitude  drone infrastructure in the region. The complete AirHub platform including AirHub Launch for Pilots, and AirHub Connect for Government, was developed and implemented for all four Aerotropolis communities.

Residents and businesses can leverage the most sophisticated pre-flight risk assessment, greater situational awareness, and the opportunity to receive automated FAA-approved LAANC approval to fly in local controlled airspace (under 400′) in just two clicks.

Beaumont Hospital, Taylor opened its doors in 1977. It became part of Beaumont Health in September 2014. This hospital provides specialty health care services with outstanding service for residents of Taylor and surrounding communities, including 24/7 emergency care, speech/language pathology and audiology, a pain management clinic, orthopedic surgery, mental health services, physical medicine and inpatient rehabilitation and full service radiology with advanced CT and MRI.