LANSING, Michigan — Michigan will put $1.7 million into 12 drone pilot projects across the state, from flying donated organs between hospitals in Ann Arbor to thermal scans of downtown Detroit buildings, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced on October 21. The awards are the first big test of the state's Advanced Air Mobility Initiative, which aims to make Michigan a national leader in putting drones to work in everyday public services.
Source: Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (OFME) announcement, Oct. 21, 2026
"Michigan is a leader in mobility innovation, focused on the next phase of technologies that improve how people, goods and essential services move," Whitmer said. "These 12 projects will put advanced air mobility technologies to work in communities across our state, creating opportunities for Michigan businesses, strengthening our innovation ecosystem and helping prepare our workforce for the jobs of the future."
Source: Michigan LEO / OFME announcement, Oct. 21, 2026
The projects were picked through a competitive process under the Michigan Mobility Funding Platform, administered by NextEnergy, and they advance Executive Directive 2025-4, the governor's whole-of-government strategy for advanced air mobility. The state's Office of Future Mobility and Electrification (OFME), part of the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, ran the selection, Government Technology reported.
Source: Government Technology (mlive/TNS), Oct. 22, 2026
The biggest award: organs by drone in Ann Arbor
The largest single grant, $245,000, goes to Brighton-based Blueflite, which will partner with M-Air and Michigan Medicine to fly donated organs between medical facilities in Ann Arbor. The pilot plans at least 20 end-to-end demonstration missions, starting at the University of Michigan's Mcity test facility, and targets a 30 percent cut in last-mile transport time against ground transport and a 95 percent mission completion rate, Dealroom reported. "Minutes lost to traffic or logistical bottlenecks directly impact organ viability and patient outcomes," a Michigan Medicine representative said.
Source: Dealroom News, Oct. 2026
Detroit takes the biggest share of the program. Lamarr AI received $230,000 to fly thermal-inspection drones over about 2 million square feet of downtown Detroit buildings, checking safety and energy performance. Birdstop got $110,000 for self-charging drones that will monitor truck parking availability around the clock — a small but practical answer to a problem every highway trucker knows. Airspace Link ($80,000) will run a drone traffic-management service for the city's increasingly busy low-altitude airspace, General Orbit ($150,000) will test magnetic navigation for drones in places where GPS fails, and Wolverine Radar ($136,000) will build satellite-based hazard warnings for drone routes.
Source: DroneNR project list / Michigan LEO, Oct. 25, 2026
Outside Detroit, ResilienX will receive $200,000 in Battle Creek to launch its ORION-X platform, starting with a drone-as-first-responder program for the Battle Creek Police Department, in which a drone reaches an emergency scene ahead of officers. CENSYS Technologies, based in Traverse City, will use $170,000 to demonstrate drone inspections of power lines, 9&10 News reported. Westwood AI in Calumet, in the Upper Peninsula, gets $100,000 for AI-assisted drone data capture for land and infrastructure inspections.
Source: Government Technology and 9&10 News, Oct. 2026
"Michigan's ability to connect an ecosystem of public and private partners to collaborate on deployments demonstrates our commitment to shared progress," said Michigan Chief Mobility Officer Justine Johnson. In Detroit, Konner Petz of the city's Office of Mobility Innovation said the city "has become one of the country's leading places to test new mobility technology and with these projects, that leadership now extends into our airspace."
Source: Michigan LEO / OFME announcement, Oct. 21, 2026
Michigan set up its Advanced Air Mobility Initiative in July 2025 as a whole-of-government effort, building on federal moves to speed up drone integration in US airspace. The 12 pilots are demonstrations, not permanent services: each is meant to prove a real-world use — medical delivery, public safety, infrastructure inspection or freight support — that can then be scaled across the state. For Michigan's large Punjabi community, concentrated in metro Detroit and the trucking corridors around it, two pieces land closest to home: drones watching truck-parking availability, and a first-responder drone program in Battle Creek.