"Drone, Transitioning from Unmanned Delivery Vehicles to Unmanned Watercraft"

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] "A drone grabs a package from an unmanned delivery vehicle and flies up into the sky. Then it delivers the package to an unmanned surface vehicle at sea and returns to the vehicle."

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 15th that it will hold an online project briefing session on the 19th to officially launch the "Unmanned Mobility Core Technology Development Project," aimed at securing the technological capability to develop and operate unmanned mobility systems across land, sea, and air.

170 Billion KRW Invested in Development of Land, Sea, and Air Unmanned Mobility Systems

This project is designed to secure core technologies for unmanned mobility and establish an integrated operation system. A total of 170.2 billion KRW will be invested from this year through 2027.

The goal is to develop common component technologies directly applicable to land, sea, and air unmanned mobility systems and to implement an autonomous cooperative integrated operation system among multiple and heterogeneous unmanned mobility platforms. The autonomous cooperative integrated operation system refers to a system where land, sea, and air unmanned mobility systems autonomously connect and operate together.

This year, 12.5 billion KRW will be invested. The budget will be allocated to 11 fields, including 9 research groups and 2 single projects.

The core technology projects are divided into ▲Detection and Recognition Research Group (Navigation Technology) ▲Detection and Recognition Research Group (Sensor Technology) ▲Communication Research Group ▲Autonomous Intelligence Research Group ▲Power Source and Mobility (Single Project) ▲Human-Mobility Interface Research Group ▲System Integration Framework (Single Project) ▲System Integration Hardware Research Group.

The integrated operation technology demonstration projects, which practically verify the core technologies, are categorized as ▲Development of Autonomous Cooperative Land, Sea, and Air Unmanned Mobility Systems (Autonomous Cooperation Research Group) ▲Development of Land-Air Separable and Combined Delivery Unmanned Mobility Systems (Land-Air Hybrid Research Group) ▲Development of Unmanned Surface Vessel-Underwater Autonomous Mobility Complex Systems (Marine Hybrid Research Group).

Deadline on the 16th of Next Month

Applications for new projects will be accepted from the 30th of this month until the deadline on the 16th of next month. Detailed information on support content, fields, and application conditions can be found on the National Research Foundation of Korea website (www.nrf.re.kr).

Seogon Ko, Director of Basic Core Research Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, "The Unmanned Mobility Core Technology Development Project is expected to serve as a catalyst for the currently small domestic unmanned mobility industry to lead the future global market. We will continue to provide unwavering support so that the outcomes of technology development can lead to more tangible results such as technology transfer and commercialization."

Meanwhile, due to difficulties in holding offline project briefings for participating institutions amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Science and ICT will conduct online project briefings on the 19th and 26th. The briefings can be watched live via YouTube through the project website.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.