Gwangju City Selected for Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's 'Cargo Drone Technology Development Project' Competition

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 19th that the Gwangju Metropolitan City-LIG Nex1 Co., Ltd. consortium was finally selected for the "Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Based 200kg-Class Cargo Drone Technology Development Project," which was publicly recruited by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology.

The cargo drone technology development project aims to develop a drone with a maximum speed of 100 km/h and a payload capacity of 200 kg by 2025, using an eco-friendly hydrogen fuel cell as the power source, capable of automatic flight and remote-controlled flight, and to establish a foundation for demonstration and commercialization support in Gwangju.

In August 2019, Gwangju signed a business agreement with LIG Nex1 Co., Ltd., Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea Drone Industry Promotion Association, and the 31st Infantry Division to foster defense drones as a regional specialized industry, and based on this, planned and promoted the cargo drone development project.

In particular, in January of this year, the consortium, including the lead organization LIG Nex1 Co., Ltd. and participating institutions, signed the "Cargo Drone Development Business Agreement" to establish an organic cooperation system.

Additionally, Gwangju formed a consortium consisting of top companies and institutions in each field, centered on LIG Nex1 Co., Ltd., which has extensive experience in developing drones such as the 40kg-class transport multicopter drone system, and including Korea Carbon Co., Ltd., a materials specialist expanding into the aerospace sector, as well as MoaSoft Co., Ltd., Shinyoung Co., Ltd., Shinil Information Technology Co., Ltd., Bitellings Co., Ltd., Taekyung Electronics Co., Ltd., Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Gwangju Technopark Foundation, and Korea Drone Industry Promotion Association.

The Drone Demonstration Promotion Center to be established in Gwangju will provide corporate residency spaces to create a drone industry ecosystem and build a full-cycle support system from R&D to commercialization. It will also create citizen participation and experience spaces to enable people to feel the Fourth Industrial Revolution represented by AI and drones.

Currently, the cargo drone market is an untapped field with no monopolistic companies, and it is analyzed to have great potential for domestic companies to pioneer and dominate the market in the future. It is expected to reach commercialization and stabilization within the next 5 to 10 years.

Moreover, this project expands the use of hydrogen fuel cells to medium and large drones to overcome the limitations of existing lithium battery power sources, enabling the activation of hydrogen mobility and the creation of new markets.

Gwangju expects that unmanned logistics transportation using cargo drones will result in revolutionary reductions in delivery times and labor costs, and the technology secured through this project is anticipated to be linked with the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) industry, which is expected to grow to about 1,700 trillion won by 2040.

Son Kyung-jong, Director of the AI Industry Bureau of Gwangju City, said, "This project is an important opportunity for Gwangju to take the lead in the drone and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) fields, which are the trends of the Fourth Industrial Revolution era," and added, "We will do our best to ensure that the drone and UAM industries, which are future growth industries, are linked to regional development."

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