'Drone Delivery and Air Quality Survey'... Incheon City Accelerates Drone Utilization Projects

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Selected for 'Drone Test City Construction and Regulatory Sandbox Project' Competition

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Drones will deliver goods and investigate air quality, including fine dust, in the skies over Incheon.

On the 18th, Incheon City announced that it had been finally selected for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's 'Drone Demonstration City Construction Project' and 'Drone Regulatory Sandbox Project' and signed an agreement.

Among these, nine local governments were selected for the Drone Demonstration City Construction Project, with Incheon being the only metropolitan city. This project aims to discover and demonstrate drone utilization models suited to urban conditions, with a total investment of 3.67 billion KRW from national and city funds over two years.

The city plans to explore drone utilization methods in the public sector, such as air quality investigation at the Sudokwon Landfill Site, coastal mudflat ecosystem surveys, and safety management of the Ara Waterway bridges, in collaboration with six institutions and companies including Incheon Technopark, Korea Aerospace University, Wizwing, XDrone, Moais, and InnoPharm.

While public sector management in areas such as environment and safety has so far been a flat system centered on CCTV, it is expected that public services will be significantly upgraded by shifting to three-dimensional management using drones.

The Drone Regulatory Sandbox Project involves using drones for commercial activities by companies. Pablo Aviation and Samyoung Logistics will invest 300 million KRW to deliver goods between logistics centers using drones and demonstrate emergency medicine delivery in urban areas.

Since 2017, the city has been discovering pilot projects utilizing drones in the public service sector. Drones have been continuously used in environmental and safety fields such as managing the invasive seaweed Sargassum horneri that devastates mudflats, fine dust management, and beach safety management.

Last month, Incheon attracted the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries' 'Community-based Ocean New Deal Project,' which manages marine debris using advanced equipment such as satellites and drones.

An Incheon city official stated, "Based on the experience accumulated from drone activation projects so far, we will strive to successfully carry out government public projects and ensure that public services using drones and urban logistics delivery can be established safely and efficiently."

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