Executive Summary
Normalized Systems (NSX) has partnered with Helicus, a pioneering Belgian medical drone operator, to provide the mission-critical IT backbone for automated interhospital medical transport. By leveraging Normalized Systems Theory, NSX developed a highly evolvable and scalable Command & Control Center (C2C).
This platform integrates complex data streams, including flight permits, drone telemetry, weather/air data, and healthcare logistics, enabling the safe, automated transport of life-saving medical supplies across European cities.
Mobility Barriers in Healthcare
Modern healthcare faces a significant logistical bottleneck: the centralization of laboratories, pharmacies, and blood banks requires the frequent, urgent transport of medical samples (blood, tissue, medicine) between facilities.
- Congestion: Road-based transport is increasingly unreliable due to urban traffic, leading to unpredictable delivery times.
- Time-Criticality: In medical emergencies, every minute counts; current logistics struggle to provide a guaranteed “on-demand” service.
- Complex Integration: Transitioning to aerial transport requires coordinating a vast ecosystem of drone manufacturers, air traffic authorities (skeyes (B), ANRA (US), DroniQ(D)), hospitals, ground logistics (Drone Cargo Port), and telecommunications providers (5G/4G).
The Helicus Aero Initiative & SAFIR-Med
The Helicus Aero Initiative (HAI) and its project SAFIR-Med were established to build a sustainable, drone-based medical transport ecosystem. This initiative brings together industry leaders in aviation, insurance, and technology to create a “U-Space” infrastructure for medical air mobility.
Normalized Systems’ Strategic Role
NSX is the software platform integrator for the consortium. Using the NSX development tooling, Normalized Systems designed and implemented the integration software for the Helicus Command & Control Center (C2C).
The C2C acts as the “brain” of the operation, ensuring:
- Drone-Agnostic Management: The ability to control varied drone platforms (from small medical drones to larger passenger-grade aircraft) through a single interface.
- Seamless Integration: Real-time data exchange between hospital order systems, drone hardware, weather/air APIs, GEO info sources, and Air Traffic Control (ATC).
- Regulatory Compliance: Integration of U-Space services, including individual flight authorizations required by EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency) regulations.
- User-friendly connection with most hospitals possible, governed through Microsoft’ s Entra-ID.
Technical Excellence with Normalized Systems
The Helicus project demands a level of reliability and evolvability that traditional software development often fails to meet. NSX provided the solution through:
- Proven Evolvability: As drone regulations and technologies (like 5G and AI-driven scheduling) evolve, the NSX-built C2C can be updated without the “combinatorial effects” that typically lead to software aging and system failure.
- Aviation-Grade Assurance: NSX successfully ran through a SWAL (Software Assurance Level) certification for the Helicus project. This EASA-aligned framework provides a high level of confidence that the software lifecycle is disciplined and the risk of development errors in safety-critical ground systems is reduced to an absolute minimum.
- Robust Architecture: The system uses MQTT for external & internal communication and specialized Healthcare/UTM Connectors to handle high volumes of real-time telemetry and mission-critical data.
- Cyber Security: Implementing state-of-the-art encryption for both data and metadata, ensuring patient privacy and mission safety.
Key Results and Milestones
- SWAL Certification: Successfully achieved SWAL certification for the Command & Control Center software, validating NSX’ readiness for safety-critical Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Air Navigation Service (ANS) functions.
- EU-First Milestone (July 2023): Helicus and NSX successfully coordinated the first medical transport by a passenger drone (EHang EH216-S) in the EU, carrying blood bags over a predefined flight path in Belgium.
- Drone Cargo Port world wide premiere: NSX, Helicus and Avercon handle ground logistics automatically. (NB: in this project we used Siemens PLC’s)
- BVLOS Operations: Successfully performed drone flights Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) over populated urban areas, demonstrating the safety and reliability of the integration software.
- Ecosystem Growth: The platform now supports a growing network of over 35 hospital partners and international projects like SAFIR-Med and SAFIR-Ready, which extend drone usage to inspection flights for railways and electrical grids.
Impact and Future Outlook
By replacing traditional road transport with automated drone flights, the Helicus project reduces turnaround times for medical results, ultimately saving lives. Normalized Systems continues to support this vision, ensuring that as Helicus scales across Europe and into new use cases, the software infrastructure remains “forever young,” scalable, and secure.
Enabling a safe and efficient drone ecosystem requires more than just the aircraft. It requires a seamless integration of diverse systems.
This is where Normalized Systems technology comes in. As a key partner in the HAI consortium, NSX provides the software foundation for the Command and Control Center and the Integration Platform. Our technology ensures that all participants—including hospitals, medical labs, airspace authorities like Skeyes, and drone ports—are connected in real-time. This integration platform manages the complex flow of information: from weather data and AI-based flight planning to secure communication with the drones themselves.
By applying the principles of Normalized Systems, we have built a platform that is not only robust and real-time but also highly evolvable. This allows the Helicus Aero Initiative to scale its operations and adapt to new technologies and regulations in the rapidly changing world of unmanned aviation.
- Need for a flight- and Control Center to monitor and control drones
- Need for an integration platform between hospitals, medical labs, insurance companies, airspace authorities, …
- Command & Control Center
- Integration Platform
- Internet of Things
- Administrative systems
- Healthcare Connector
- UTM Connector (unmanned traffic control)
- Real-time drone communication
- Drone platform & Robotics Drone Port
- Kafka real-time streaming platform
- Weather API + GEO info sources
- AI Planning solution
- Skeyes air traffic control
