Brighton drone maker blueflite will test flying donor organs to Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center, in a state-funded pilot announced Wednesday, October 21. Michigan’s Office of Future Mobility and Electrification (OFME) gave blueflite $245,000 for the Ann Arbor project, the largest of 12 drone and advanced air mobility grants that add up to $1,705,000.
The other 11 grants run from $70,000 to $230,000. They pay for a drone-as-first-responder program for the Battle Creek Police Department and thermal drone scans of downtown Detroit buildings, among other work. Eight of the 12 projects are in Detroit, and all of them came through the Michigan Mobility Funding Platform, which NextEnergy runs for the state.
The state’s announcement sets no performance goal for any of the 12 projects. The organ team published its own the same day.
Blueflite Targets 30% Faster Organ Transport Over 20 Test Flights
Where the state’s release names no goals, the organ project’s partners published three: at least 20 end-to-end demonstration missions, at least a 30% cut in last-mile organ transport time against historical ground benchmarks, and mission reliability of 95% or better. Testing starts at the Mcity Test Facility in Ann Arbor…