How Far has Korea’s Drone Industry Flown?

The global drone, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), market is rapidly growing, and so is the industry. Technological advancement in the area of sensors and GPS is one of the driving factors, in addition to the growing scope for commercialization and the size of the market.

In the past, drones are mainly used for only military or security purposes, but today, commercial drone use is soaring. Drones are used in situations where manned flight is considered too risky or difficult. They provid troops with a 24-hour “eye in the sky,” seven days a week. Today, their uses range from crop spraying to cargo transport, disaster relief, search and rescue, damage assessment, motion picture film-making, intelligence-gathering, and surveillance.

As such, the growing technological ecosystem of drone software and hardware producers can now cater to a long list of clients in agriculture, land management, energy, construction, and other fields.

One of the most noticeable developments in the recent year is the fast-growing Chinese drone industry and market. China currently dominates 70 percent of the global drone market. The world’s largest consumer drone maker is a Chinese company named DJI (CEO Frank Wang) that has a turnover for 2015 at over US$1 billion.

According to BI Intelligence, the size of the world’s  consumer drone market is 600 billion won (US$498 million) in 2015, and is expected to rise to 2.6 trillion won (US$2.2 billion) by 2023. In Korea, the government expects the size of the domestic consumer drone market to reach 600 billion won by 2022, up from 60 billion won (US$50 million) this year. Accordingly, the Korean government listed drones as one of the 19 industries to focus on under the current administration as a new engine of growth. Also, it claimed that the government would work to make Korea break into the top 3 countries in the drone industry. To that end, the government specified that by 2019, it government will invest 25 billion won (US$21 million). It also announced that the government would work to create 5,000 jobs and 100 companies in the industry. Nevertheless, the commitment proves to be somewhat limited when t comes to relaxing regulations.

According to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), as far as technology is concerned, Korea belongs to the top tier. Recently, KARI successfully developed a tiltrotor drone (TR-60), which is able to take off and land vertically like a helicopter, while flying like an airplane. Able to stay in the air for up to six hours, the TR-60 can reach speeds of up to 500 kilometers an hour, making it the fastest of its kind in the world. KARI also mentioned that Korea has possessed most of the core technologies related to drones. The main concerns are the relatively small size of the domestic market and regulations.

In Korea, due to security reasons, the commercial use of drones is limited to agricultural use and filming. According to Korea's transportation ministry, drones are not allowed to fly at night, between sunset and dawn. The ban also applies to certain places such as close to airfields or crowded venues. To fly drones in restricted zones, like the DMZ, a company needs formal approval from the government. And a drone must remain in the pilot's sight at all times.

Some have pointed out that relaxing regulations isn’t going to be a panacea. As seen in the U.S. case, many governments still retain regulation to uphold civilian safety and protect privacy.