KARI - Korea Aerospace Research institute

KARI is developing next-generation unmanned vehicle technologies that reflect future technological, social, and cultural changes to lead the global market.

It establishes a technology foundation for integrated operation between heterogeneous environments in the areas of land, sea, and air through research on autonomous and cooperative unmanned vehicles. Unmanned vehicles on land, sea, and air do not depend on fixed communication infrastructure on the ground or at sea but form a network through direct communication with other types of unmanned vehicles and perform the common mission given by autonomous intelligent cluster operation technology through cooperation between unmanned vehicles without human operator intervention.

KARI develops precision cooperation technology, including docking and undocking between heterogeneous types, through research on UAV and UGV. The UAV and UGV system can be used for a 24-hour autonomous unmanned delivery system through the docking-undocking operation. UAV for long-distance transport are capable of vertical takeoff and landing and cruising in fixed-wing mode, and UGV for short-distance delivery can deliver items to final destinations through autonomous driving in the city.

KARI researches unmanned marine vehicles to develop technologies for integrated operation on water and underwater. They are classified into unmanned ships, powered unmanned submarines, and buoyant unmanned submarines. The core technologies under development include launching and recovery between unmanned ships and unmanned submarines, multiplex communication network, hybrid power source of hydrogen fuel cells for long-term operation, and autonomous collaboration between unmanned marine vehicles. These technologies enable unmanned marine vehicles to perform wide-area complex missions.