Societe Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aeronautiques : Inter hospital transport by drone becomes reality

Inter hospital transport by drone becomes reality

BRUSSELS/ANTWERP-Helicus Aero Iniave (HAI) is pung in place a system that is able to transport medical parcels by drones between hospitals and their laboratories/pharmacies. The project, named MEDRONA, was selected for funding by the federal government. Inter hospital test flights will take place during the second part of 2019 in Antwerp urban airspace.

The aim of MEDRONA is to demonstrate a system that is able to transport medical parcels (e.g. human ssue, blood & urine samples and pharmacy preparaons) in a reliable, ecological and efficient way. The project is designed to structurally expand today's modal mix, taking traffic away from congested roads and using the underulized capacity in the Very Low Level (VLL) airspace (between ground and 150 meters high). Five companies have joined forces in this project: Belgocontrol, SABCA, Unifly, NSX and Helicus. Each company will focus on a specific part of the overall soluon.

"Rather than seng up simple flights between hospitals, the project will offer sustainable soluons that are fully compliant with both air traffic management and healthcare regulaons. This service will enable hospitals to maintain high-quality services to their paents in mes of congested road transport", explains Mikael Shamim, Managing Director of Helicus and Coordinator of the Helicus Aero Iniave.

Smart Mobility Belgium

The project was selected out of 136 candidate projects within the frame of Smart Mobility Belgium (SMB). SMB is a joint iniave of the Belgian federal minsters of Transport and Communicaon for projects aiming at smart and innovave mobility applicaons. It has a budget of 4M€.

SMB will provide support to MEDRONA which constutes the second phase of the Helicus Aero Iniave (HAI). This phase aims to build safety assessments for specific inter hospital flight corridors. A series of test flights in 2019 should allow to obtain the regulatory approval for the future exploitaon of the medical drone transport system in Antwerp.

"We are very proud to be part of one of the selected projects. It underlines the interest that is expressed at different government levels and the growing belief that drones can bring a posive impact to society at large and its mobility challenges in parcular," says Hendrik-Jan Van Der Gucht, Manager Innovaon at Belgocontrol, the Belgian Air Navigaon Service Provider (ANSP).

About the partners:

Belgocontrolis an autonomous public company, created in October 1998, with the mission to guarantee the safety of air navigaon in the airspace for which Belgium is responsible. Its zone of acvies extends from ground level (at Brussels Airport and the airports of Antwerp, Charleroi, Kortrijk, Liege and Ostend) to flight level 245 (7,5 km high) above Belgium and from flight levels 145 to 245 for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Uniflyis the leading provider of Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) soſtware. Today, Unifly's technology is in use on a naonal level by four leading air navigaon service providers (ANSPs), as well as in several regional projects throughout the world. Unifly also closely collaborates with major internaonal corporaons and ANSPs in 10 European UTM research projects, as well as with the FAA and with state authories in the UAS Integraon Pilot Program (IPP).

SABCAis a key Belgian aerospace company founded in 1920. It has built an extensive and varied know-how based on its 95+ years of experience in designing, building, maintaining, and upgrading large and complex elements for aircraſt and space launchers. It's customers and partners are key players in the global aerospace market. SABCA offers a complete range of services to Unmanned Aviaon Vehicle (UAV) market by transferring proven experse in aircraſt system integraon, tesng, qualificaon and cerficaon to UAV systems. SABCA will design & build the UAV plaorm for MEDRONA that will be used throughout the Helicus Aero Iniave.

NSXdesigns and engineers informaon systems, according to Normalized Systems theory, so they exhibit proven evolvability. NSX has both developed the theory and proven in pracce the value of normalized systems by effecvely creang systems that are able to scale efficiently and run large data volumes. This technology is used to develop the IT backbone of the Helicus Aero Iniave, which will be key to allow scaling when addional hospitals are added into the command & control system.

Helicusis a start-up company that aims to operate long term qualitave, ecological and affordable soluons for medical transport. Helicus offers a common framework to coordinate and implement the competences of interested partners under the "Helicus Aero Iniave (HAI)". HAI effecvely forms an eco-system of complementary companies to jointly & efficiently develop unmanned aerial soluons for the healthcare sector. Phase one is the Proof of Concept (ending in a demonstraon flight above the city of Antwerp). Phase two (MEDRONA accepted under SMB) is an extended urban tesng program as part of an operaonal Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system. Phase Three will offer services to specific pilot hospitals.

Contact informaon: Steven Wille - Head of SABCA UAS Business Unit e-mail:steven.wille@sabca.be