KARI - Korea Aerospace Research institute

KARI is developing common original technologies in six categories for six advanced unmanned vehicle types that can be applied for land, sea, and air missions to develop mission-customized, high-performance unmanned vehicles and secure interoperability between multiple and heterogeneous vehicles. Common original technologies include data acquisition/analysis/processing, information exchange by controllers-to-vehicles connection or vehicles-to-vehicles connection, situation awareness/decision making processing, task execution and power supply.

KARI is developing alternative navigation technologies based on detection and recognition to operate in indoor environment or BVLOS areas, focusing on securing original technologies in the field of vehicle communications with weak technical levels while developing technologies to prevent illegal activities by improving communication safety and reliability. It first develops situation aware technology for the vehicle to self-determine the situation and perform tasks accordingly and seeks cooperation between vehicles as a long-term goal (autonomous intelligence). Moreover, it plans to develop a lightweight, high-efficiency electric drive system for unmanned vehicles as well as new-concept technologies for power sources and mobility, such as a distributed electric propulsion system, by linking different power sources.

According to the interaction level, KARI defines three research steps as direct control, supervision, and collaboration and the research is sequentially progressed from control method development to cooperative technology development (HMI). Advanced system engineering technology for autonomous unmanned vehicles is developing. Flapping or morphing structure, conformal load-bearing antenna structures, structural electronics and composite material 3D-printing technology are developing by the hardware research team.