Up to 1.3 Billion KRW Support in 9 Locations Including Incheon, Sejong, and Goyang City
On the afternoon of the 17th last month, a joint training exercise for drone wildfire suppression teams was held around Expo Bridge in Seo-gu, Daejeon. Drones are expected to be dispatched to traffic accident scenes to collect on-site data and to serve as firefighters in high-rise building fires.
On the 15th, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced the selection of nine "Drone Demonstration Cities" to implement new drone services in urban areas and 14 companies for the "Drone Regulatory Sandbox" to support the commercialization of excellent technologies.
The Ministry has been conducting contests for drone demonstration cities since 2019 and regulatory sandbox contests since 2018 to support the urban utilization of new drone technologies and the demonstration of outstanding technologies.
This year, the selected drone demonstration cities are ▲Incheon ▲Sejong ▲Goyang, Gyeonggi Province ▲Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province ▲Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province ▲Wonju, Gangwon Province ▲Gimcheon, Gyeongbuk Province ▲Jeonju, Jeonbuk Province ▲Seosan, Chungnam Province, totaling nine locations.
These local governments will receive up to 1.3 billion KRW in funding to conduct customized projects according to the characteristics of each city.
In Seongnam, drones will be deployed for traffic accident dispatch and remote insurance handling, while in Seosan, drones will be used for unmanned delivery in island areas.
In Goyang, drones will be utilized to build urban heat island maps, and in Pocheon, demonstrations will be conducted for developing augmented reality (AR) drone tourism content.
In particular, starting this year, the Ministry explained that up to two years of demonstration opportunities will be provided to enable more demonstrations in various environments using drone products requested by demand sites.
Fourteen drone companies were selected as operators for the drone regulatory sandbox project, each receiving up to 300 million KRW in demonstration budgets.
This year’s regulatory sandbox selection fields have diversified to include drone software (SE), drone delivery, safety inspection, and drone leisure.
Demonstrations are underway aiming at commercialization of drone delivery between logistics centers in urban areas (Pablo), development of swarm drone fire suppression and rescue systems for high-rise buildings (Cheongju University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation), and localization of core drone components such as flight control, power boards, and ground control systems (Hanaro TNS).
The selected companies are ▲Ubifly ▲Pablo ▲Nearslab ▲Viewmagine ▲Cheongju University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation ▲Muhan Information Technology ▲Hexafactory ▲Hanaro TNS ▲Doosan DI ▲Cinerex ▲Meisa ▲CAMTIC Institute of Technology ▲XDrone ▲Narmada.
Kim Heon-jeong, Director of Aviation Policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, "The domestic drone market size has grown more than sevenfold in just over four years, from 70.4 billion KRW in 2016 to 494.5 billion KRW in 2020. We hope that the local governments and companies participating in the drone demonstration projects will play a pivotal role in new technology development and drone industry growth based on thorough safety management."
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