Michigan Central Station in Detroit, the once beautiful but now abandoned train station that Ford is rehabbing into a center of innovation and technology, is about to be invaded by drones.
The Ford subsidiary that operates the train station, Michigan Central, announced today that it will partner with the state Department of Transportation (MDOT) to test the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAM), or drones, to deliver medicine, food and other small items to nearby residents.
The drone delivery tests will take place in what is called the Detroit Advanced Aerial Innovation Region, an area within a three-mile radius of Michigan Central Station where drones can make deliveries to homes and nearby apartment buildings or perform other tasks such as building inspections.
The ultimate goal is to obtain approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that allows drone operators to fly longer distances and beyond lines of sight. But it will also open up a new line of revenue for Ford and its partners in what is projected to be a $50 billion industry by 2030.
“We think about it at the intersection of mobility and society,” said Carolina Pluszczynski, chief operating officer of Michigan Central, in an interview with The edge. “What I mean by this is real-world problems, real-world solutions in a real-world environment.”
Michigan Central Station opened its doors in 1913 as a soaring 18-story masterpiece of fine arts and a symbol of Detroit’s once-held status as the Motor City, home to the world’s most innovative companies. But the slow decline of the auto industry in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the shameful history of racial division, white flight, inequality and lack of public investment, left Michigan Central Station (and the city as a whole) like a shadow of his former self.
Ford bought the run-down train station in 2018 as a hub for its future mobility projects — think self-driving cars, connected software and technologies, and, of course, drones. At the beginning of this year, the company reopened an adjacent building, renamed Newlab, which will serve as a space for automotive startups working on new technologies dedicated to transportation. Ford has said it plans to move thousands of employees into the rehabilitated buildings starting next year.
The drone experiment will be one of the first to test the company’s thesis about how collaborative environments can generate new and lucrative services based on data analysis and technological innovation. In addition to Michigan Central, MDOT and Newlab, drone deliveries will also bring a cloud-based software provider called Airspace Link, which is FAA-approved for drone testing. Pluszczynski called Airspace Link “the Google Maps of the air.”
Central Michigan has yet to select drone operators for its two-year pilot, but Pluszczynski expects the first use cases to involve prescription drug deliveries or transporting medical supplies.
“We are providing the digital (and) physical infrastructure,” he said. “We are implementing controls with the state to control that airspace. And then Airspace Link will be there and Newlab will attract the use cases.”
Regarding the broader goal of allowing drone operators to fly beyond line of sight (a big step forward considering the FAA needs to approve it), Pluszczynski said the hope is that MDOT can help collect the data needed to help strengthen your case.
Experts say drone operations technology%20to%20its%20full%20potential.”>beyond line of sight (BVLOS) of a remote pilot have the potential to open the door to longer flights, new markets and fewer restrictions for ground staff. And if drone delivery ever becomes a viable business, operators must be able to obtain these types of approvals.
“I think if drones are ever going to go mainstream, we need to implement those policies,” Pluszczynski said.
Ford, through Central Michigan, is testing waters where other companies, including UPS, Fedex, Amazon, Google and others, have been stepping on it for years. And Ford will not have exclusivity over any of the potential businesses that arise from the new program.
Drone deliveries are still only available in a handful of small communities, with limited service areas and a relatively small list of available items. The slowness of the approval process and the mistakes of the companies involved have fueled skepticism that drone delivery is another of those promised futures that will never be fulfilled.
But Pluszczynski said there’s still an opportunity, as long as drone operators can demonstrate they’re addressing a “critical need.”
“No one has ever tried to create this public-private partnership and bring all of these entities together in a neutral way to advance technologies,” he said. “And so it’s a challenge, but I feel like we have momentum.”
