Choctaw Nation lands $2M federal grant to fly medical supplies across Oklahoma’s rural reservation

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) just received a $2 million SMART (Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation) grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to build out a drone-based medical delivery network across its 10,923-square-mile reservation in southeastern Oklahoma. The announcement came alongside a live demonstration at the Atoka Health Clinic, where airborne drones and a robotic ground unit showed how the system would work in practice.

Here is what you need to know:

• The grant: Nearly $2 million from USDOT’s $500 million SMART program, with eligibility for up to $15 million in Stage 2 funding if the initial 18-month pilot succeeds.
• The mission: Drones will transport blood samples, medications, and emergency medical supplies between CNO health clinics and directly to patients’ homes across rural Oklahoma.
• Why it matters: The Choctaw Nation already operates the largest BVLOS waiver in America at 377 square miles, and was designated as one of only two new FAA drone test sites in January 2026. This grant turns that infrastructure into a working healthcare delivery system.
• The source: News9, with additional reporting from KXII, KOCO, and KFOR.

A decade of preparation behind a single drone flight

The Choctaw Nation’s drone medical delivery program is the result of roughly ten years of work, according to James Grimsley, CNO’s Executive Director of Advanced Technology Initiatives. Grimsley said the idea took root during his time as an Oklahoma transportation commissioner, where he saw firsthand how road fatalities in rural areas far outpaced those in cities.

“We need this service desperately,” said Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton. “We live in a very rural, remote setting, and to be able to deliver medications to our people in that area or to our clinics, I mean I think it’s really going to change the way that we’re able to deliver services to our people here in the Choctaw reservation.”

The problem is straightforward. Clinical workers at CNO health facilities currently drive thousands of miles each year moving blood samples, medications, and supplies between locations by car. That eats time, burns fuel, and puts staff on rural Oklahoma highways that Grimsley knows are statistically more dangerous than urban roads.

The SMART grant funds Stage 1 of the project, which focuses on the logistics of running the system between two clinics: the McAlester and Atoka campuses. Drones will carry medical cargo along pre-approved flight paths that avoid residential areas.

“They follow very safe routes. They don’t fly over people’s houses. They fly in a way that’s very, very remote,” Grimsley told News9.

When a drone arrives at a clinic, a robotic ground unit picks up the payload and delivers it to medical staff.

“There will always be a human overseeing it, and there always will be a human that can step in if there’s a problem,” Grimsley said.

The Choctaw Nation’s drone infrastructure is already the most advanced in the U.S.

The Choctaw Nation is not starting from scratch. It holds the largest beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) waiver in the United States, covering 377 square miles across a 43-mile corridor that connects CNO medical clinics, the Emerging Aviation Technology Center near Redden, Oklahoma, and various tribal facilities. That waiver, originally approved in January 2024, includes true BVLOS operations without visual observers, using ground-based detect-and-avoid technology from uAvionix.

On January 8, 2026, the FAA designated the Choctaw Nation as one of two new UAS Test Sites, the first such designations in nearly a decade. The other site is Indiana. That designation came directly from Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, and was explicitly linked to President Trump’s “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” Executive Order.

The tribe was also one of only 10 sites selected for the original UAS Integration Pilot Program in 2018, and it was the first Native American tribal government to receive a Public Aircraft Operations Certificate of Authorization from the FAA. Its Emerging Aviation Technology Center sits on over 44,600 acres of tribally owned land.

In other words, the $2 million SMART grant is not funding an experiment. It is funding the operational deployment of technology that the Choctaw Nation has spent years proving works.

The SMART grant’s two-stage structure and $15 million expansion path

The USDOT’s SMART Grants program is a $500 million initiative designed to support technology-driven transportation solutions. The Choctaw Nation’s $2 million award covers the first 18 months of operation, during which the tribe will work out the logistics of running reliable drone deliveries between McAlester and Atoka.

If Stage 1 succeeds, CNO can apply for Stage 2 funding of up to $15 million for full-scale deployment across the entire reservation.

“We’re already preparing to go after the stage two because the stage two is implementation. That’s where we go from two clinics to start to build out for the entire reservation,” Grimsley told KXII.

Stan Caldwell, the USDOT’s SMART Grants Program Director, said the Choctaw Nation could become a national model for rural healthcare logistics.

“They are involved deeply in the process and providing a lot of feedback to the process, not just to make sure that this process is private and secure and safe, and easy to use for themselves, but so that other communities can replicate the success of this project in the future,” Caldwell said.

The Choctaw Nation is not the only SMART grant recipient testing drone-based healthcare delivery. North Carolina received $1.1 million from the same program to deploy drone-in-a-box systems for disaster response, with a focus on delivering medicine and supplies to areas hit by hurricanes.

Rural medical drone delivery is gaining momentum across the U.S.

The Choctaw Nation’s program fits into a growing pattern of rural drone delivery projects that are producing real results. In September 2025, a Pyka autonomous drone delivered an AED nearly 30 miles to a rural Kansas hospital, cutting a journey that would take a courier van over an hour down to a 30-minute flight. In North Dakota, a Supervolo drone flew medical supplies 80 miles from Williston to Watford City in 35 minutes as part of Project Rural Reach.

Michigan’s Munson Healthcare system has been testing drone deliveries of lab samples between facilities in rural northern Michigan, where staff currently drive over 90,000 miles per year moving supplies by car. Globally, Zipline’s operations in Africa have shown what scaled medical drone delivery looks like: maternal deaths dropped 56% at Zipline-supported facilities, and order fulfillment times fell from 13 days to under 30 minutes.

What makes the Choctaw Nation’s program different is its existing regulatory and physical infrastructure. Most rural drone delivery projects are still running individual test flights or limited pilots. The Choctaw Nation already has a 377-square-mile BVLOS corridor, an FAA test site designation, a dedicated aviation technology center, and nearly a decade of operational experience. The SMART grant connects that infrastructure to a specific healthcare mission with measurable outcomes.

Future plans extend beyond healthcare

Grimsley told News9 that the Choctaw Nation’s plans go beyond medical delivery. Future applications could include convenience items, reducing the need for rural residents to drive long distances for basic goods. He pointed to something as simple as a tube of toothpaste as a potential drone delivery item.

He said the tribe plans to begin gradual rollout over the next five years and predicted that by 2030, communities across the United States will see some form of drone delivery almost everywhere.

That timeline aligns with the broader regulatory trajectory. The FAA’s proposed Part 108 rule for BVLOS operations is expected to create a standardized framework for exactly the kind of operations the Choctaw Nation is already conducting under waivers. The tribe’s test site designation means its operational data will directly inform how Part 108 is implemented and expanded.

DroneXL’s Take

The Choctaw Nation has been building toward this moment longer than most people realize. We first covered their drone operations back in 2020, when the tribe was using drones for damage assessments after tornadoes and flood events with a single trained pilot. Five years later, they hold the largest BVLOS waiver in the country, they’re one of only nine FAA test sites, and they just secured federal funding to start flying medical supplies to clinics and patients’ homes.

That trajectory matters more than the $2 million grant itself. This isn’t a press release project. The Choctaw Nation has real infrastructure, real regulatory approvals, and real operational experience. When Grimsley says they’re “already preparing to go after stage two,” I believe him. They’ve earned that confidence.

The SMART grant program director calling the Choctaw Nation a potential national model is the most telling detail in this story. USDOT isn’t just funding this project. They want other communities to copy it. And with the Part 108 final rule deadline looming, the timing makes sense. The FAA needs operational data from programs that are actually flying, not just proposing to fly. The Choctaw Nation is one of the few entities in the country that can provide that data at scale.

Expect CNO to be among the first applicants for Stage 2 funding. If they hit their benchmarks on the McAlester-Atoka corridor, the $15 million expansion to cover the full 10,923-square-mile reservation would be the largest rural medical drone delivery network in the United States. By mid-2027, this could be the program that every other tribal nation and rural health system points to when making the case for their own drone delivery operations.

Editorial Note: This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI to ensure technical accuracy and archive retrieval. All insights, industry analysis, and perspectives were provided exclusively by Haye Kesteloo and our other DroneXL authors, editors, and YouTube partners to ensure the “Human-First” perspective our readers expect.