MSIP to Invest $34 Million for 3 Years in Development of Unmanned Vehicles

South Korean Government is going to invest total of $34 million (40 billion KRW) for 3 years into technologies for unmanned vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), self-driving cars, unmanned surface vehicles and others.

Ministry of Science, ICP and Future Planning (MSIP) made an announcement on the 17th that it is going to push for ‘Development Business of Major Technologies for Unmanned Vehicles for the Future’ until July of 2019 to grow driving forces of drones and to secure leading technical skills for the future. $12.8 million (15 billion KRW) will be invested for this year. South Korean Government is planning to increase its competitive edge in markets by developing technologies for small drones for public and civilians first and secure original technologies for next-generation’s unmanned vehicles.

While many countries are increasing amount of investments to have control of unmanned vehicle markets that are growing rapidly, South Korean Government also had invested about $242 million (284 billion KRW) into unmanned vehicles for past 4 years. However prices and performance of its unmanned vehicles are behind of advanced unmanned vehicle countries such as China.

Because technologies for unmanned vehicles require huge development cost and longer development period and have no efficiency since they are divided into land (self-driving cars), sea (unmanned surface vehicles), and air (drones), South Korean Government is going to push for common platform technologies (parts, navigation, communication, operation SW and others). It is also going to work on developing technologies for autonomic cooperation-type unmanned vehicles, which are major technologies to develop enhanced unmanned vehicles, and researching intellectualization of unmanned vehicles that are based on artificial intelligence.

Size of private markets for small drones that weigh less than 30kg is growing bigger. South Korean Government is going to target markets that service towards publics and civilians that require higher performance than drones for purpose of hobby and support in development of technologies to improve technical capabilities of South Korea’s small and venture companies that develop drones.

South Korean Government is going to officially start its business in second half of this year after launching an unmanned vehicle task force sometime during this month and going through researches done on which technologies are in demand and public offering of tasks that are being implemented by National Research Foundation of Korea.

Staff Reporter Song, Hyeyoung | [email protected]