Sangju City Selected for "Ministry of Land Drone Demonstration City Establishment Project" Competition

From Demonstration to Business Implementation
Verification of the Dual Drone-Rover Delivery Model

Sangju City, North Gyeongsang Province (Mayor Kang Youngseok), announced that it has achieved the remarkable feat of being selected as the final winner of the "2026 Drone Demonstration City Establishment Project" organized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. This marks the second consecutive year that the city has been chosen as a project-implementing local government, following last year's selection.

The Drone Demonstration City Establishment Project is a public competition aimed at verifying innovative business models such as drone delivery and administrative services tailored to local characteristics, and supporting the establishment of drone services in local governments. With this selection, the city has secured 100 million won in national funding and plans to accelerate the advancement and commercialization of drone delivery and technology completion around the Gyeongcheon Island area.

This year, the Drone Demonstration City Consortium will be centered around Sangju City as the representative entity and will maximize its expertise through the participation of DoomDoom Co., Ltd., Korea Airports Corporation, and the Gyeongbuk Institute of IT Convergence Industry Technology Foundation.

DoomDoom Co., Ltd. will be responsible for customized drone and rover production and operations, Korea Airports Corporation will establish the integrated control system, and the Gyeongbuk Institute of IT Convergence Industry Technology Foundation will be in charge of technical support and demonstration data analysis, respectively.

This year, in particular, the city will not rest on last year’s successful demonstration results but will introduce a more advanced "drone-rover dual hybrid model." While last year's demonstration featured an integrated model combining drones and rovers, this year’s approach will operate drones (middle mile) and rovers (last mile) independently in their respective domains.

The core technology of this model, the "Automatic Box Handover System," enables the ground rover to automatically receive only the delivery box brought by the drone into Gyeongcheon Island and complete the final delivery to the customer. This is expected to increase the per-delivery capacity from the previous four cups of beverages to up to 16 cups.

Additionally, the city plans to enhance user convenience by linking with public delivery platforms to lower the entry barrier for delivery services. Furthermore, the demonstration rovers will be tested for continuous autonomous driving within Gyeongcheon Island, and the city will explore ways to integrate them into a variety of public services beyond delivery.

An official from Sangju City stated, "Being selected as a Drone Demonstration City for two consecutive years proves that Sangju is emerging as a hub for the future mobility industry," and added, "We aim to establish the standard model for K-drone delivery in Sangju, going beyond simple technical demonstrations to real business implementation."

Meanwhile, Sangju City plans to continue pursuing a long-term roadmap for expanding the drone ecosystem, including efforts to designate a special drone liberalization zone, establish a drone demonstration testbed, and build an AI-based smart wildfire monitoring system.

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