Aero'ed

Inspiration

9 Cree communities along James Bay in Northern Quebec are served by nursing stations, not hospitals. When a diabetic elder in Chisasibi needs insulin and weather grounds the charter flights, they wait. A single charter to deliver a $30 medication costs $5,000-$15,000. 72% of Northern Ontario communities have no pharmacist. 18% of Canadians are rural but only 8% of doctors serve them.

On November 4, 2025, Transport Canada's new BVLOS framework took effect. Drones under 150 kg can now fly beyond visual line of sight in uncontrolled airspace without individual flight certificates. DDC's Canary drone already holds BVLOS and dangerous goods approval for healthcare routes. The regulation is ready, the hardware exists. What's missing is the software to orchestrate multi-station relay delivery across hundreds of kilometers. That's Aero'ed.

What it does

Aero'ed is the software platform for drone relay corridors. Instead of one drone flying 600 km (impossible with current batteries), we chain short 20 km legs together. A sealed medication cartridge passes from one charged drone to the next at each station. Twelve hops, fifteen minutes each.

Three portals share one live data layer:

Admin - weather radar (real Government of Canada GeoMet tiles), fleet management, Gemini-powered analytics
Distributor - pharmacy dispatch with AI severity scoring, natural language commands ("Send insulin to Chisasibi, urgent"), Solana custody ledger
Receiver - voice supply requests, ETA countdowns, ElevenLabs arrival alerts

No manual launch button exists. Approve a delivery and it auto-dispatches: route computed, drone assigned, tracking live, voice alert on arrival.

Demo corridor: Chibougamau → Mistissini → Nemaska → Waskaganish → Eastmain → Wemindji → Chisasibi → Whapmagoostui. ~600 km, 12 stations, 5 drones, real coordinates.

How we built it

React + Vite frontend with Leaflet.js maps (custom SVG drone icons, corridor overlays, weather halos). Node.js/Express backend with server-side simulation timers advancing legs every 15s and a lifecycle monitor retrying failed launches.

Gemini API handles natural language dispatch, severity scoring on clinic requests, weather-aware rerouting, and analytics Q&A. MongoDB Atlas stores live drone states, deliveries, and station telemetry. Snowflake powers corridor economics and compliance reporting. Solana records every cartridge handoff as an immutable on-chain transaction for chain-of-custody. ElevenLabs + Web Speech API enable voice input for requests and TTS arrival alerts. Open-Meteo + GeoMet WMS provide real weather data that drives routing decisions.

ETAs use haversine distance at 80 km/h with weather delay adjustments. Not random numbers.

Challenges we ran into

Making the lifecycle fully autonomous was the hardest part. Zero manual launch buttons means the system needs a robust state machine (REQUESTED → PENDING_DISPATCH → READY_TO_LAUNCH → IN_TRANSIT → DELIVERED) with retry logic for missing routes, unavailable drones, and weather holds. The background monitor retrying every 15 seconds was the key.

Weather across 600 km is nonuniform. Clear in Chibougamau, severe in Chisasibi. We built per-station classification (CLEAR/WATCH/UNSTABLE/SEVERE) that aggregates into route-level assessments so Gemini makes smart rerouting decisions instead of binary go/no-go.

Getting Gemini to reliably parse "we need supplies up north, pretty urgent" into a specific community, medication type, and priority level took a lot of prompt iteration.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The end-to-end automation. Clinic submits request → pharmacy approves → system computes route → drone launches → cartridge relays through stations → ElevenLabs voice alert on arrival. No human in the loop after approval.

Real Government of Canada weather radar on the admin dashboard. Same precipitation layer Environment Canada uses, not mock data.

The demo uses real Cree community names and coordinates along the actual James Bay corridor. This isn't a hypothetical route.

Natural language dispatch actually works. "Send insulin to Chisasibi, urgent priority" parses, routes, and launches in one interaction.

What we learned

Weather is the binding constraint, not range. We initially optimized for distance but had to rebuild routing around weather-first decisions.

Transport Canada is further ahead than most people think. The November 2025 BVLOS framework, DDC's existing certifications, and UBC's 1,200+ successful medication delivery flights to the Stellat'en First Nation mean the regulatory path is well-trodden.

Voice interfaces matter in remote healthcare. A nurse in a staffing-short nursing station can't always sit at a computer filling out forms. Voice commands and audio alerts fit the actual workflow.

The relay concept changes the economics. You don't need a $200K long-range drone. You need a network of $20K short-range drones with smart orchestration. The software is the product.

What's next for Aero'ed

Ideally a pilot partnership with the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay (CBHSSJB), which manages healthcare for all 9 communities and processes 32,000+ medical appointments per year. Hardware partnership with DDC/Volatus for Canary drones. Level 1 Complex Operations certification under the 2025 BVLOS rules.

After James Bay: ~1,200 remote communities across Canada need this. The delivery drone market is projected to hit $596M by 2030. Platform licensing to international operators (Northern Scandinavia, Alaska, Pacific Islands) is the long-term play.