Ahn Kyu-baek: “A Testbed Role… Leading the Establishment of the Industrial Ecosystem”
– Contributing as a Major User for Military Use of Domestically-produced Drone Equipment
On the 20th, during the ‘Ulsan Port Integrated Defense Drill in Connection with Cyber Crisis Response’ held around the 5th pier of Ulsan Port, the military is responding to a swarm drone attack. [Yonhap News]
[Herald Economy=Jun Hyun-gun Reporter] The Ministry of Defense announced that Minister Ahn Kyu-baek visited the 36th Infantry Division of the Army on the morning of the 4th and designated the first dedicated unit for verification in the fields of small drones and counter-drones for training 500,000 drone warriors.
At the event, Minister Ahn stated, “Other units should actively utilize the know-how of strengthening the division’s own drone operation capabilities through the creative and various efforts of the 36th Division,” and urged that, “The military should serve as a central testbed to quickly verify equipment integrated with excellent advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI).”
He also remarked, “In the late 1990s, President Kim Dae-jung provided informatization education to military personnel, thereby fostering Korean youth into world-class digital talents and establishing Korea as an IT powerhouse,” and emphasized, “Through the new challenge of training 500,000 drone warriors, let’s actively perform the role of a priming water that can become a new growth driver for both individual capability development and the future of the domestic industry and nation.”
Minister Ahn particularly mentioned, “The effort to train 500,000 drone warriors will strengthen our military’s drone operation capabilities and serve as a foundation that allows individual soldiers to actively contribute to the related industry even after discharge. We will actively cooperate with each military branch and related ministries for this,” and added, “The military should continuously create demand for drones with localized core components and play a leading role in building and revitalizing the domestic drone industry ecosystem.”
To this end, the Ministry of Defense is actively promoting various efforts to create an environment for training 500,000 drone warriors and quickly integrate excellent civilian drone-related technologies into the military.
For this purpose, approximately 20.5 billion won has been allocated in next year’s government budget proposal in consultation with financial authorities.
The Ministry of Defense plans to provide all military personnel with opportunities to easily acquire drone piloting qualifications and practical experience after joining the military, contribute to enhancing military combat power during their service, and act as drone field experts in the civilian industry after discharge.
Moreover, by using domestically localized educational commercial drone equipment directly in the military, they plan to contribute to the revival of the domestic drone industry sector as a major demand center in the public sector.
The Ministry intends to reinforce the verification and utility of various types of domestically localized educational and commercial drones by securing a large number of small commercial drones with localized core components like motors and batteries, in close cooperation with industry and related agencies.
Additionally, they plan to strengthen infrastructure by installing training grounds within garrisons where soldiers can easily master flight skills and expand the nurturing of drone specialist trainers to enhance drone specialized education capacities.
Considering the mission types and characteristics of each military branch and unit, the Ministry of Defense aims to review and implement model projects for each military branch targeting the second half of this year.
A Ministry of Defense official stated, “To sufficiently verify the technology of small drones and counter-drone equipment under development in the civilian sector, we are considering plans to designate additional ‘small drone and counter-drone verification dedicated units’ suitable for the mission types of each military branch and unit.”