Skyports teams up with Massachusetts DOT to show how drone services can link communities across Cape Cod region

Sky­ports has part­nered with the Mass­a­chu­setts Depart­ment of Transportation’s (Mass­DOT) Aero­nau­tics Divi­sion to demon­strate how its drone ser­vices could link com­mu­ni­ties across the Cape Cod region in the US state.

Mass­DOT is inves­ti­gat­ing the uses of drones as a solu­tion to con­nect­ing its remote com­mu­ni­ties to every­day ser­vices such as health­care and logis­tics.

In par­tic­u­lar, it is look­ing to devel­op a capa­bil­i­ty to pro­vide emer­gency med­ical deliv­ery after storms or oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. The Cape Cod region con­tains numer­ous hard to reach com­mu­ni­ties includ­ing: islands, penin­su­las, and off­shore ener­gy projects where drones can pro­vide an effec­tive method of keep­ing these areas con­nect­ed.

Sky­ports presents an ide­al solu­tion to the prob­lem, as the operator’s drones are capa­ble of fly­ing safe­ly in harsh weath­er con­di­tions and are able to car­ry var­ied car­go pay­loads up to 100 lbs. The com­pa­ny has been grant­ed approval by the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) to oper­ate beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) flights dur­ing a week-long fea­si­bil­i­ty project.

The project will guide Mass­DOT as it explores broad­er BVLOS drone oper­a­tions in Mass­a­chu­setts, to per­form ser­vices such as rail net­work and road inspec­tions. Dur­ing the project, Sky­ports will com­plete a series of test flights and demon­stra­tions to prove its oper­a­tional reli­a­bil­i­ty and tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty.

Dr. Jef­frey DeCar­lo, Mass­DOT Aero­nau­tics Admin­is­tra­tor, said: “Mass­DOT is excit­ed to be work­ing with Sky­ports for this first deliv­ery demon­stra­tion, help­ing us estab­lish a foun­da­tion for new, inno­v­a­tive drone use cas­es to sup­port com­mu­ni­ties across the Com­mon­wealth. The Aero­nau­tics Divi­sion estab­lished the Drone Pro­gram after recog­nis­ing the poten­tial of drones to sup­port MassDOT’s tra­di­tion­al inspec­tion and asset man­age­ment mis­sions.

“We are now explor­ing new drone use cas­es such as emer­gency deliv­ery and are for­tu­nate to be able to part­ner with com­pa­nies like Sky­ports that are push­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and oper­a­tions. Mass­a­chu­setts has a diverse geog­ra­phy and a com­plex air­space to nav­i­gate, and Sky­ports has brought its tremen­dous flight expe­ri­ence to bear in order to make this first demon­stra­tion a suc­cess.”

Mass­DOT already uses drones as part of its pro­gram to sup­port the trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture across the Com­mon­wealth of Mass­a­chu­setts. MassDOT’s Drone Pro­gram per­forms dai­ly flights to sup­port the Mass­DOT High­way, Rail and Tran­sit, and Aero­nau­tics Divi­sions, along with the Mass­a­chu­setts Bay Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty (MBTA) that oper­ates the sub­way and com­muter rail lines. 

These flights inspect rail track, doc­u­ment the health of wet­lands near con­struc­tion sites, and map high­way and air­port projects. As part of these efforts, Mass­DOT is also look­ing to expand its abil­i­ty to per­form com­plex drone oper­a­tions such as BVLOS flight over rail and emer­gency deliv­ery to remote com­mu­ni­ties.

Mass­DOT turned to Sky­ports to help define the approach to deliv­ery oper­a­tions, and to demon­strate deliv­ery flights across Vine­yard Sound, between Woods Hole on Cape Cod and the island of Martha’s Vine­yard.

Alex Brown, Head of Drone Deliv­er­ies at Sky­ports, said: “We’re real­ly excit­ed to be part­ner­ing with the Mass­a­chu­setts Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion to demon­strate how our drone ser­vices can bring life-enhanc­ing ben­e­fits to its rur­al com­mu­ni­ties. Our belief at Sky­ports is that ser­vices such as health­care should be acces­si­ble in a time­ly way for every­one regard­less of where they live, which up-until-now has been a huge chal­lenge for road trans­port in hard-to-reach areas.

“Drones real­ly are trans­form­ing the logis­tics sec­tor by bring­ing fast, fre­quent, reli­able and afford­able solu­tions. This is just the first step in bring­ing BVLOS drone oper­a­tions, includ­ing drone deliv­ery ser­vices, to Mass­a­chu­setts in the com­ing years.”

Fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the project, Sky­ports plans to move into full scale per­ma­nent com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in Mass­a­chu­setts before expand­ing its oper­a­tions across oth­er states in the US.