Trials have commenced for an on-demand medical delivery service between Belgian hospitals with unmanned aerial vehicles remotely piloted from the UK.
The trial, east of Antwerp, involves shuttling urgent medical cargo to two hospital campuses – located at Herentals and Turnhout St Jozef – from the A-kwadraat operational hub in south Turnhout.
UK-based Skyports Drone Services is co-operating with healthcare provider AZ Turnhout on the trial which began on 1 August.
Skyports says it has obtained approval for the drones to be piloted from its remote operations centre in the southeast UK.
“[This] will allow the delivery network to be scaled up easily, reducing delivery costs for the medical network,” it adds, describing the approval as a “major regulatory breakthrough”.
Airspace receivers have been fitted to hospital roofs in the region to facilitate integration.
Skyports says the drones – a RigiTech Eiger for the 18.7km Herentals route and a Speedbird DLV-2 for the 4.4km route to St Jozef – will typically carry medication and pathology samples.
The project aims to deliver urgent medical cargo faster than the current van or bicycle scheme.
Centralisation means “not every hospital needs to invest in the same costly infrastructure”, adds Skyports head of technology Jef Geudens.
Skyports intends the trial, with the drones flying five days per week, to serve as a platform to establish Belgium’s first permanent medical drone delivery network.