Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to Invest 17.8 Billion KRW in Drone Delivery and Localization

Public Offering for 'Drone Demonstration City Construction Project' and 'Drone Commercialization Support Project'
13 Billion KRW for Construction Projects, 4.8 Billion KRW for Support Projects

On the morning of the 21st, officials are conducting a demonstration of navigation safety facility inspection using a drone at the Jeju Aviation Radio Beacon Station in Seogwipo-si, Jeju. Korea Airports Corporation manages and operates 10 aviation radio beacon stations that provide direction and distance information for the safe operation of aircraft. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will support the drone industry development this year with a total of 17.8 billion KRW for delivery, leisure sports sectors, and localization.

From the 16th, the Ministry announced the start of the public offering for the 'Drone Demonstration City Construction Project' and the 'Drone Commercialization Support Project' with this content. This year, 13 billion KRW will be invested in the construction project and 4.8 billion KRW in the support project.

This year's Drone Demonstration City Construction Project can be applied for in three fields: drone delivery, drone leisure sports, and advanced drone administrative services. This project has been promoted since 2019 as a support project to demonstrate drone business models tailored to regional characteristics such as delivery, leisure sports, and administrative services. Among them, drone delivery support started last year, selecting a total of 14 local governments and conducting 2,993 deliveries in 50 areas (32 islands, 17 parks, 1 port).

The Ministry will select 10 new local governments in the delivery sector this year. The 14 local governments that participated in this project last year will expand the scope of drone use to public services such as medical supplies delivery and regional patrols through project plan evaluations.

A demonstration of the port drone delivery service took place at the drone delivery hub center of Korea Maritime and Ocean University in Yeongdo-gu, Busan. Photo by Yonhap News

Support will also be provided for drone leisure sports fields such as the international drone light show and the international drone sports competition. Drone racing will be fostered using domestically produced drones, and efforts will be made to internationalize this field by holding the Drone Soccer World Cup in Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do, in September. In addition, advanced drone administrative services using excellent domestic technologies such as 3D modeling and real-time drone video provision will be established as an innovative administrative model.

This year's drone commercialization support project can be applied for in three fields: drone full-cycle ecosystem construction based on parts localization, technology development with high social demand, and general drone utilization fields.

For ecosystem construction, the Ministry will pursue practical localization by developing core component technologies such as drone motors, batteries, flight controllers, communication devices, and linking to complete product sales and utilization. The Ministry will support up to 3.3 billion KRW for project tasks that build a production-sales-utilization ecosystem when each development company forms a consortium to apply.

Also, for tasks with high social demand and requiring continuous technology commercialization, support will be provided for developing high-performance medium-to-large drones such as long-range drones for delivery, agricultural, firefighting, and pest control drones with heavy payloads, as well as high-performance optical and thermal (EO/IR) cameras for facility inspection and security/surveillance.

Applications for the public offering are open until the 14th of next month. Detailed information can be found from that day on the Drone Information Portal and the Aviation Safety Technology Institute website. Application forms must be submitted in person at the Aviation Safety Technology Institute in Seo-gu, Incheon.

Kim Ki-hoon, Director of the Advanced Aviation Division at the Ministry, said, "Following last year, we will focus on fostering the drone industry around three pillars: K-Drone delivery, drone leisure sports, and drone localization," adding, "We expect active participation from local governments and drone businesses."

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