Skyports and AZ Turnhout launch drone trial in Kempen, Belgium

Above: (left to right) Sofie Peeters, AZ Turnhout, Anje Vermeiren, A-kwadraat, Elilie De Bruyn, AZ Turnhout and Jef Jef Geudens, Head of Technology, Skyports Drone Services.
Courtesy Skyports

The service – which began 1st August – is using drones to transport urgent medical cargo between the hospital campuses of AZ Turnhout St Jozef and AZ Herentals, using A-kwadraat as a central operational hub. Flying Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and using a Remote Operations Centre (ROC) to pilot the drones, the project aims to deliver urgent medical cargo faster and more efficiently than the current system of van and bike deliveries, which is slower and often constrained by delivery schedules. 

In a major regulatory breakthrough, Skyports has also secured the regulatory approval for the drones to be piloted remotely from Skyports’ Remote Operations Centre (ROC) in Buckinghamshire in the UK, which will allow the delivery network to be scaled up easily, reducing delivery costs for the medical network.

For the first stage of the project Skyports will be flying the RigiTech Eiger and the Speedbird DLV-2. The Eiger will be used to fly the A-kwadraat to AZ Herentals route, covering the 18.7km distance in 13 minutes (compared to 30 mins by road), flying with an average cruise speed of 29 m/s with a nominal operating altitude of 80 metres, with a max payload of 3kg. The DLV-2 will fly the A-kwadraat to St Jozef route, covering the 4.4km distance in seven minutes (compared to 16 minutes by road), flying with an average cruise speed of 16 m/s with a nominal operating altitude of 50 metres, with a max payload of 5kg. 

At the beginning of June, airspace receivers were installed on the roofs of all the hospitals in the region to help facilitate the drone operations, ensuring that the drones can integrate with existing crewed airspace. Precision landing QR barcodes have also been placed at each location to mark the automated drone landing sites.

For the first phase of the trial the drones will be flying five days a week, with a longer term ambition to develop the first permanent medical drone delivery network in Belgium, providing automated drone delivery stations at the key hospital sights in Kempen which could be operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Commenting on the launch, Jef Geudens, Head of Technology, Skyports Drone Services, said: “By transporting medical samples and medication quickly and reliably through the air, Skyports is enabling the future centralisation of laboratory activities in specialised hubs such as A-kwadraat. This means that not every hospital needs to invest in the same costly infrastructure. At the same time, this can help accelerate access to personalised treatments — such as patient-specific chemotherapy — which can be delivered faster and made available across multiple locations.”

Griet Braekmans, Director of Facilities and Project Manager at AZ Turnhout said: “As a hospital, we are of course very enthusiastic about this project. For years, we’ve been working together with hospitals in the Kempen region and A-kwadraat in the areas of medication and pathology samples. Over the past five years, we’ve focused on organising transport between hospitals in an efficient and sustainable way. With drones, we can provide more personalised care for patients and improve collaboration between hospitals.”