I am "Affiliate Kaitus, Global Supplier of 'Airships' Chosen by US Department of Homeland Security and SoftBank"

IM announced on the 16th that its affiliate, Kaitus Technology, has signed an exclusive domestic supply and global sales partner agreement with the US company Altaeros for unmanned airships.

Based on this contract, IM plans to enter the domestic as well as the global unmanned airship market together with Kaitus.

Altaeros is a company that has succeeded in developing fully unmanned airships requiring minimal personnel through its proprietary AI-based Autopilot technology. Founded in 2010 as an MIT engineering startup, it is currently recognized as a leader in the field of unmanned airship automation. Its flagship product, ST-Flex, supports fully autonomous takeoff and landing 24 hours a day, can detect objects 30 to 40 km away at an altitude of approximately 300 meters, and has a payload capacity of 60 kg.

Notably, ST-Flex was selected last month as a border detection system by the US Department of Homeland Security, securing a contract worth $99 million (approximately 130 billion KRW). It has also supplied unmanned airships equipped with communication platforms to Japan's SoftBank Telcom.

By mounting repeaters on unmanned airships, broadband services can be provided to areas with weak mobile broadband coverage. One unmanned communication airship is equivalent to 30 conventional mobile communication repeaters, offering a 70% reduction in installation costs. Additionally, it reduces the required operational personnel, and users can remotely monitor the status of multiple unmanned airships from base stations in other regions.

Altaeros is preparing to launch not only the ST-Flex but also the medium-sized ST-300 and large ST-1000 models. Once these product lines are released, demand is expected to increase not only in 4G LTE/5G communication networks and MANET but also in military detection and tracking fields.

A company representative stated, “Kaitus, which made its debut at numerous domestic and international exhibitions earlier this year through a supply contract with Portem, a company gaining attention in the anti-drone sector, plans to supply products tailored to diverse customer needs through this large-scale contract. IM plans to rapidly secure advanced products and technologies from developed countries leading the global defense industry together with Kaitus and enter the global market.”

Meanwhile, unmanned airships are mainly used for ground and maritime aerial surveillance and aerial communication, including day and night imaging based on radar and optical cameras. While existing ground observation equipment and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft have limitations such as restricted observation range and many blind spots, unmanned airships can operate for extended periods at high altitudes and possess detection and tracking capabilities, leading many countries to actively adopt them. According to the market research firm IMARC, the global market size for unmanned airships was approximately 16 trillion KRW last year and is expected to reach about 33 trillion KRW by 2028.

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