Illegal Drones Targeting Nuclear Plants and Airports, Forensically Investigated to 'Eradicate the Root Cause'

Consortium of 23 Industry-Academic-Research Institutes Including Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute Holds Kick-off Meeting on 27th
Completion of Development and Demonstration of Anti-Drone Integrated System Including DroneCop by 2025

Reference photo. Not related to the article.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] The development of an 'anti-drone' system to respond to threats of intrusion and terrorism at national security facilities such as nuclear power plants and airports using drones has been launched in earnest. Within the next five years, a system will be developed to detect illegal drones early, neutralize them, and force them to land.

On the 27th, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) announced on the 31st that it held a kickoff meeting with four public institutions including the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), universities, and 23 organizations including LIG Nex1, officially starting the 'Illegal Drone Intelligent Response Technology Development Project.' These institutions, including KAERI, were selected last month by the government as the final executing organizations for the ‘Illegal Drone Intelligent Response Technology Development Project.’ This is a multi-ministerial project with a total budget of 42 billion KRW (18 billion KRW from the Ministry of Science and ICT, 15 billion KRW from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and 9 billion KRW from the National Police Agency), with a development period of five years until 2025.

The goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate an integrated solution capable of comprehensive response from detection, identification, analysis, neutralization, to accident investigation of illegal drones by 2025. KAERI is responsible for ‘overall project management and integrated system development,’ while LIG Nex1 leads the development of the ‘ground-based system’ consisting of detection, identification, tracking, and neutralization equipment. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute leads the development of the ‘air-based system’ drone cop, which performs continuous patrol (monitoring peripheral and shadow areas) and rapid response (direct neutralization of illegal drones), which interworks and complements the ground-based system. All research and development will be conducted over the next two years starting this year, with system integration and demonstration to be completed by 2025.

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute held the 'Kickoff Meeting for the Illegal Drone Intelligent Response Technology Development Project' at its headquarters in Daejeon on the 27th. Photo by Wonjaryeokyeong

KAERI will also take the lead in developing core intelligent neutralization technologies that analyze vulnerabilities and derive neutralization methods immediately upon illegal drone identification, as well as forensic technologies to investigate illegal activities. Forensic technology is commonly used in police investigations for unlocking and data recovery of computers or smartphones. The plan is to introduce this technology into the anti-drone system to collect data and apply it to flight and accident investigation of illegal drones and suspect tracking, thereby preventing damage and aiding accident investigations.

Using the Public Safety LTE (PS-LTE) disaster safety communication network, the ground-based and air-based systems will be connected into one, optimally deployed at critical facilities, and an integrated operation system will be established and demonstrated to apply intelligent neutralization core technologies and forensic technologies. Notably, the Korea Airports Corporation, a major technology user, is directly participating to derive illegal drone threat scenarios and support demonstration tests for applying the illegal drone response system at airports.

Until now, the need for anti-drone technology application at major domestic facilities has been continuously raised, but domestic technology was still insufficient. Since importing foreign equipment would lead to excessive maintenance budgets and security concerns, a consortium centered on KAERI was formed to develop domestic technology. The anti-drone system will first be established at nuclear facilities and airports, and then expanded to other infrastructure.

Son Jun-young, director of KAERI, emphasized, “This development project should not end with the fixed five years of research but requires continuous research with a roadmap of over 10 years through collaboration among ministries,” highlighting the need for new specialized personnel. KAERI plans to work with the University of Science and Technology (UST) to establish a new public safety security engineering field and focus on nurturing related personnel in anti-drone, unmanned aerial vehicles, security, forensics, wireless, and safety.

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