LG Uplus Partners with Quaternion and Korea Aerospace University to Develop Next-Generation 5G and AI-Based Drone Services

(From left) Jang Si-young, Director of Industry-Academic Cooperation Group at Korea Aerospace University, Jeon Young-seo, Head of Corporate Service Development Lab at LG Uplus, Song Yong-gyu, CEO of Quaternion.

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] LG Uplus announced on the 26th that it has signed a business agreement with Korea Aerospace University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation and Quaternion to develop differentiated 5G-based smart drone artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and discover specialized mission equipment.

LG Uplus equipped drone bodies with 5G mobile communication and remote control functions. The smart drone service enables beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) control and real-time video transmission, and is equipped with AI fire detection using edge computing-based AI video analysis and thermal imaging cameras.

Korea Aerospace University is a specialized university in the aviation field, recognized for its outstanding expertise in drone education and research. This year, it was selected for the Ministry of Education’s ‘Brain Korea 21 (BK21) Project’ and ‘Leaders in Industry-university Cooperation (LINC+) Project.’ It is also continuously conducting research on UAM and UTM for future mobility.

Quaternion is a drone body design, flight control system, and safety solution development company founded by Professor Yonggyu Song of Korea Aerospace University’s Smart Drone Department and graduates of the flight control laboratory. It possesses core technologies for small mission equipment solutions specialized for drones and flight control computers (HW/SW). This year, it demonstrated a safety solution using tethered drones to prevent mudflat accidents in the Seosan drone demonstration city and is developing commercialization of a mobile tethered drone system.

Through this collaboration, LG Uplus plans to additionally secure a lineup of small and medium-sized drone bodies and discover mission equipment such as small, lightweight, high-resolution thermal optical (EO/IR) cameras to improve drone flight time and operational convenience. The AI fire detection technology developed by LG Uplus will be applied to drones equipped with such mission equipment for services such as wildfire detection.

Additionally, to ensure safe flights in non-urban areas such as coastal and mountainous regions, they are preparing to demonstrate a visualization solution that monitors communication quality in the airspace.

To this end, LG Uplus will provide Quaternion with drone solutions such as smart drone control services and video services and plans to jointly promote drone-related businesses in the future. Quaternion will integrate 5G communication boards, SC boards, and mission equipment with the smart drone platform and link hardware interfaces suitable for various customer-customized services. Korea Aerospace University will conduct drone flight tests, AI research related to drones, and UAM-linked research.

Youngseo Jeon, Head of LG Uplus Enterprise Service Development Lab, said, “The utilization of 5G-based beyond visual line of sight smart drone solutions is increasing. We will cooperate mutually to discover specialized solutions based on 5G and AI through industry-academic collaboration, advancing beyond the AI fire detection solution secured this year,” and added, “We will focus on enhancing technical completeness to participate in next year’s drone demonstration city project.”