Gwangju City, full-fledged promotion of a 200 kg cargo drone

Mayor Lee Yong-seop “The field of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles will also become a leading city”

Mayor Yong-seop Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju, is signing a business agreement for the development of an eco-friendly hydrogen fuel cell-based loading weight of 200kg in the business room of the city hall on the afternoon of the 14th. The photo is from left: Lee Hae-chang, head of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Kim Hwan-pil, 11th Airborne Special Forces Brigade Commander, Choi Soon-gun, 31st Infantry Division, Kim Ji-chan, LIG ​​Nex1 representative, Yong-seop Yong-seop, Gwangju mayor, Ahn Hye-ri, CEO of Taekyung Electronics Co., and Jeong Yeon-seok, Korea Aerospace Technology KAT, CEO , Myung-Joon Kim, President of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, and Kwang-Yup Kim, CEO of Hiz Aviation Co., Ltd. Photo = courtesy of Gwangju Metropolitan City

[아시아경제 호남취재본부 박선강 기자] Development of a 200 kg cargo drone based on eco-friendly hydrogen fuel cells led by Gwangju Metropolitan City will be promoted in earnest.

This project was planned by Gwangju and confirmed as a project by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the final project execution consortium will be selected in April after an announcement next month.

On the 14th, the city of Gwangju, led by LIG Nex1, which participates in this project, is focused on Haze Air Co., Ltd. Equipment), Korea Aerospace Technology KAT Co., Ltd. (performance evaluation), the Army Special Warfare Command, and the 31st Infantry Division (demonstration support, customers) signed a business agreement.

Mayor Yong-seop Lee, CEO Ji-chan Kim of LIG Nex1, Kwang-yup Kim, President of Hise Aviation, Myeong-Joon Kim of Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Hae-Chang Hae of Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Hye-ri Ahn, CEO of Taekyung Electronics Co., Ltd., Yeonseok Jeong, CEO of Korea Aviation Technology KAT, Hwanpil Kim The 11th Airborne Special Forces Brigade Commander and the 31st Infantry Division Commander Soon-Geon Choi, etc. attended.

The city has formed a consortium in which the best organizations in each field participate, as this project is considered to be an important project to revolutionize unmanned aerial vehicle technology and advance into the era of urban air mobility (UAM).

Through the agreement, Gwangju City and other participating companies can cooperate and support for core technology development, establish policies, systems, and infrastructure for certification and demonstration, discover and promote joint research projects, and enable projects to be linked to the development of the Gwangju City drone industry. I decided to support and cooperate.

In particular, in order to overcome the limitations of operating time of existing drones, we plan to promote technology development based on’eco-friendly hydrogen fuel cell’, which has high energy density and is the core of the Green New Deal.

This hydrogen fuel cell technology development is expected to further increase the degree of completion of the consortium as it is expected to participate in a production company specializing in hydrogen fuel cells for mobility.

Gwangju City will provide administrative and financial support to establish the infrastructure for certification and verification support necessary for the development of Cargo drones, and to ensure successful technology development, and technology exchange by linking participating organizations such as LIG Nex1 with local companies. And plan to support building a business network.

Gwangju City has selected the drone industry as one of the 11 strategic industries, and established a drone flight practice center (drone park, national practical test center) and the Onbit Nuri drone center to create an infrastructure for citizens to easily access drones, followed by the Bitgoeul Festival. Etc. have been striving to foster the drone industry.

In addition, in August 2019, we signed a business agreement to foster defense drones and made efforts to develop defense drones into a specialized drone industry in Gwangju City, and based on this, we discovered this project.

Mayor Lee Yong-seop said, “It is of great significance in that the technology secured through this project can be used as a core technology that will transform into the urban aviation mobility (UAM) era such as drone taxis and flying cars. “We will do our best to make Gwangju, the center of artificial intelligence, a leading city in the field of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, which is the trend of the 4th industrial revolution.”

Reporter Park Seon-gang, Honam News Headquarters skpark82@asiae.co.kr