A limited pilot program testing drone delivery of “critical medical supplies” to an Arizona senior living community will take place this summer.
The Chandler City Council has approved agreements with the Maricopa Association of Governments, or MAG, and aviation services and consulting firm Airspace Link to test the technology. Drones will deliver medical supplies from an Omnicare long-term care pharmacy to a Chandler, AZ, assisted living community. The city indicated in a news release that the technology has the potential to “improve traffic and shorten delivery times for critical products.”
The pilot project is being funded by MAG through its Emerging Technologies Field Pilots On-Call program. As the regional planning agency, MAG seeks technologies that can make the region “smarter, more sustainable, more resilient and prosperous.”
The test will be limited to seven days during a two-week span, with four to six flights anticipated per day along a five-minute route. The drones will fly below the 400-foot requirement set by the Federal Aviation Administration, and operators will maintain a visual sight line at all times. Cameras on the drones are for flight safety and will not record video.
Airspace Link will lead the project. Spright, an uncrewed aircraft systems company, will provide the drones as well as communication systems for the deployment, monitoring and landing of the unmanned aircraft.
The use of drones to deliver prescriptions to senior living residents previously was tested in 2019 in North Carolina in a program between Omnicare parent company CVS Health and UPS. A retirement community resident became one of the first people in the nation to receive prescriptions via drone through UPS Flight Forward, the first company approved by the FAA to operate a drone airline. UPSFF and CVS teamed up for another program in 2020 to deliver prescriptions to residents of The Villages in Florida.
