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The Whitmer Administration AAM Agenda

  • Writer: Aaron Thelenwood
    Aaron Thelenwood
  • Nov 26, 2025
  • 5 min read

How the Whitmer Administration Is Growing Michigan’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Sector


Michigan’s approach to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) hasn’t arrived through a single announcement or initiative. Instead, the Whitmer Administration has been steadily building a coordinated strategy—one that connects airports, innovation districts, state agencies, and private‑sector partners into a unified vision for next‑generation mobility. This newsletter feature breaks down that strategy in a clear, accessible way for readers who may be unfamiliar, offering essential context on how Michigan is preparing for the future of aviation and mobility.


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AAM EMERGES AS A PRIORITY


Michigan’s mobility identity has always been shaped by its ability to build, test, and scale industries. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is no exception.

Over the past several years, the Whitmer Administration has taken a steady, coordinated, and intensely practical approach to integrating AAM into the state’s broader mobility and economic development agenda. The goal is not simply to participate in AAM—it’s to establish Michigan as a national model for deployment, workforce growth, and infrastructure readiness.



Laying the Groundwork


Michigan’s AAM story begins with the creation of the Office of Future Mobility & Electrification (OFME). Though originally aimed at electrification, connected vehicle technology, and advanced automotive mobility, OFME became the backbone for statewide AAM efforts. As early electric vehicle corridors and AV pilots took off, the structure was already in place for aviation to follow.

 

Around this same time, Michigan engaged in its earliest formal AAM partnership through Airspace Link. This was a pivotal moment—Airspace Link’s digital mapping platform and community‑focused UAS planning work provided Michigan with its first operational foothold in low‑altitude autonomy. Early medical‑delivery pilots and BVLOS groundwork in Southeast Michigan helped position the state for more complex deployments.


Moving from Exploration to Deployment


Michigan’s shift from AAM exploration to AAM deployment came with the launch of the AAM Activation Fund. This was a turning point: real dollars, real infrastructure, real airports.

 

Through this initiative, companies like BETA Technologies, Blueflite, DroneUp, and others advanced their work in Michigan. BETA played a particularly visible role through its charging infrastructure corridor—installing Charge Cubes in Lansing, Traverse City, Benton Harbor, and other strategic airports. While BETA wasn’t the first AAM partner, it was a catalyst for statewide infrastructure planning.

 

This fund quietly set Michigan apart. Few states had invested in multi‑airport electric aviation infrastructure at this scale.


The “Triple Challenge” Framing


As Michigan broadened its mobility narrative, the Whitmer Administration began using a consistent framing for future transportation strategies: the “Triple Challenge” of electrification, automation, and decarbonization.

 

AAM fits naturally into all three pillars: • Electrification: grid capacity, charging nodes, distributed aviation power.

  • Automation: UTM systems, autonomy stacks, BVLOS operations.

  • Decarbonization: improved logistics efficiency, reduced emissions, sustainable transport.

 

By positioning AAM alongside the automotive and electrification ecosystem, Michigan framed the industry not as an outsider—but as a natural evolution of the state’s core strengths.


The Uncrewed Triple Challenge: Michigan’s Multi-Domain Test of Autonomy


Earlier this year, Michigan held its first-ever Uncrewed Triple Challenge (UTC) — a three-stage, fully autonomous mobility competition that pushed teams to move a package across water, air, and land without a single moment of human intervention. Conceived under the Whitmer Administration and delivered through a partnership between MEDC, MDOT, the Michigan National Guard, and the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, UTC was designed not as a demonstration, but as a stress test for the future of autonomous systems.


The course began on the shore of Lake Huron in Alpena, where teams launched uncrewed maritime vessels through the harbor. After completing the water segment, payloads had to be autonomously transferred to an aerial system capable of navigating a cross-country flight north toward Camp Grayling. The final leg required a ground-based robot to complete the delivery on land, crossing rugged terrain to reach the finish point.


Each segment had to work without remote control, operator overrides, or manual intervention — a standard that immediately separated the mature technologies from the still-experimental ones. The challenge embodied exactly what Michigan has been signaling through its broader AAM work: autonomy that works across multiple domains, not in isolation.


Results & Recognition


The inaugural competition brought in teams from across the country, representing defense contractors, universities, robotics labs, and private-sector innovators. Several teams completed individual segments, but only a small number managed to navigate the full three-domain sequence.

According to official state reporting:


  • Team Kettering University earned top marks for the maritime segment, demonstrating one of the most stable autonomous vessel runs of the day.

  • Team Autonomous Systems Lab (University of Michigan–Dearborn) secured the highest performance in the air segment, with a reliable autonomous handoff and a clean cross-country flight.

  • Ghost Robotics–aligned teams demonstrated some of the strongest land-based performance, leveraging quadruped platforms capable of navigating uneven terrain.

  • The state awarded overall recognition to the teams that best demonstrated inter-domain coordination and successful autonomous payload transfers — the most difficult element of the entire challenge.


Michigan officials emphasized that the winners weren’t just the teams with the fastest times, but the teams that proved their systems could operate reliably, safely, and autonomously across conditions that reflect real-world deployments.


Why It Mattered


The Triple Challenge served as a proof point for Michigan’s mobility ambitions. It validated:

  • that Michigan can host complex, multi-domain autonomous testing,

  • that the state's agencies can coordinate seamlessly on emerging mobility trials,

  • and that Michigan’s AAM strategy is not theoretical — it’s operational.


Just as importantly, UTC created a shared stage for defense, academia, and private industry to test technologies side-by-side, providing the kind of stress environment that accelerates innovation far more than controlled lab environments.


For Michigan, the Triple Challenge wasn’t just a race. It was the state demonstrating — very publicly — that the future of mobility runs across water, air, and land, and that Michigan intends to be the place where those capabilities are proven.


The 2025 Acceleration: Michigan’s AAM Initiative


The next leap came in 2025 with the formal establishment of the Michigan Advanced Air Mobility Initiative through Executive Directive 2025‑4. This directive did three crucial things:

 

  1. Recognized AAM as a statewide economic, mobility, and infrastructure priority.

  2. Directed OFME to coordinate implementation across all relevant state agencies.

  3. Required development of a statewide AAM strategy aligned with federal timelines.

 

Alongside the directive, the state invested an additional $4.1M into new AAM pilots—demonstrating commitment beyond planning. This included a high‑visibility automotive logistics project involving DroneUp, Blueflite, Airspace Link, and Jack Demmer Ford to test rapid parts delivery.


A Statewide Network Approach


Michigan is not building isolated drone programs or stand‑alone eVTOL projects. The approach is corridor‑based and ecosystem‑driven.

 

Examples include:

  • Michigan Central and Newlab’s BVLOS corridor in Detroit

  • Multi‑airport electric charging networks funded through BETA deployments

  • Critical‑infrastructure and emergency‑response UAS pilots under state agencies

  • Innovation nodes in Grand Rapids (FLITE), Traverse City, Detroit, and Battle Creek

 

The vision is clear: airports become nodes in a statewide mobility network extending across industries, agencies, and communities.


Where It’s Heading


Based on current investments, partnerships, and policy signals, Michigan is likely to pursue:


  • Detroit–Ann Arbor, Detroit–Grand Rapids, Detroit–Flint corridor development

  • Continued investment in AAM charging infrastructure

  • Cross‑border collaboration with Ontario, Indiana, and Ohio

  • New workforce pathways for electric propulsion, autonomy, and advanced aviation tech

  • Integration of AAM into emergency management and healthcare logistics

 

This is a model built on scaling—not one‑off pilots. The Bottom Line

 

The Whitmer Administration’s approach to AAM is intentional, strategic, and grounded in Michigan’s identity as a mobility leader.

Instead of treating AAM as a novelty, the state has embedded it into its broader mobility and economic development strategy—ensuring that airports, communities, companies, and universities all have a role to play.

 

This isn’t a reinvention of Michigan’s mobility legacy.

It’s the continuation of it.

 

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