Darkflite has been awarded a Phase II contract under the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program following the successful completion of Phase I activities in 2025.
The Phase II effort, titled “Prehospital Blood Transfusion Systems Improvement: Expanding Access Through Innovative Technologies and Tools,” focuses on advancing drone-enabled medical logistics capabilities designed to improve access to life-saving blood products during time-critical emergency response operations.
The project addresses a significant challenge in roadway safety and emergency medicine. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), tens of thousands of fatalities occur on U.S. roadways each year, with uncontrolled hemorrhage remaining one of the leading preventable causes of trauma-related death. Improving access to blood products during the earliest stages of emergency response has the potential to enhance patient outcomes, particularly in situations where traditional ground transportation may be delayed by distance, congestion, or other operational constraints.
Building on the feasibility work completed during Phase I, the Phase II program will focus on translating validated concepts into operational planning, system integration, and controlled demonstration activities that evaluate how drone-enabled blood delivery could fit within real-world emergency response workflows. The program will also generate operational data, documentation, and lessons learned to support continued engagement with public-sector, healthcare, aviation, and regulatory stakeholders as the use case progresses toward broader deployment.
The project is being conducted in collaboration with Acadian Ambulance and additional stakeholders supporting the advancement of healthcare logistics through advanced air mobility technologies. As a frontline EMS and medical operations partner, Acadian will provide critical clinical, dispatch, and field operations expertise, including support for triage and 9-1-1 process evaluation, drone dispatch decision criteria, blood handling and chain-of-custody procedures, site selection, field logistics, crew training, simulated emergency operations, KPI analysis, and commercialization planning. This partnership helps ensure the project remains grounded in real-world emergency medical workflows and the practical needs of EMS teams responding to time-critical trauma events.
The award also aligns with darkflite’s broader focus on mission-critical medical logistics. This work positions darkflite at the intersection of emergency response, defense medical resupply, and autonomous aerial logistics, demonstrating how resilient drone delivery systems can support life-saving missions when speed, access, and reliability are essential.
As drone delivery technology continues to mature, healthcare logistics is emerging as one of the most compelling applications. Unlike conventional delivery services, medical transport missions place a premium on speed, reliability, and accessibility, creating a strong operational and economic case for advanced aerial logistics solutions.
This USDOT Phase II contract further expands darkflite’s portfolio of government-supported programs and represents an important step toward the integration of autonomous aerial logistics into healthcare and emergency response systems.
About Darkflite
Darkflite develops advanced autonomous logistics solutions for government, defense, and public-sector missions. Leveraging blueflite’s autonomous aerial logistics technology, the company addresses mission-critical transportation, medical resupply, emergency response, and defense logistics challenges where speed, reliability, and operational resilience matter most.
About Acadian Ambulance
Acadian Ambulance is one of the nation’s largest employee-owned ambulance services, providing emergency and non-emergency medical transportation, air medical services, and healthcare support across multiple states. In this program, Acadian brings frontline EMS experience, clinical protocol expertise, dispatch and triage insight, field operations support, and real-world healthcare logistics perspective to help evaluate how drone-enabled blood delivery can be integrated into emergency response workflows.
About NHTSA
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is responsible for keeping people safe on America’s roadways. Through enforcing vehicle performance standards and partnerships with state and local governments, NHTSA reduces deaths, injuries and economic losses from motor vehicle crashes.