Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) announced that it has signed a business agreement with ELBIT (ELBIT Systems LTD.) of Israel to cooperate in the next-generation drone business.
ELBIT is Israel's leading defense company with high-tech technologies such as aviation, space, and drones, and the two companies will jointly develop next-generation unmanned system technology and marketing activities for domestic and foreign drone markets.
The unmanned system technology can control flight and automatic flight through the ground control center, making it widely available not only for military aircraft but also for future personal air vehicle (PAV) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) study.
KAI is the first in Korea to electrify military-grade unmanned aerial vehicles, including fighter jets and helicopters, and is also participating in the development of the next generation military-grade unmanned aerial vehicles, so it has significant capabilities related to air mobility as well as drones.
The NI-600VT, a vertical takeoff and landing drone developed by KAI with its own investment, succeeded in unmanned automatic flight in 2019, and most of the key technologies such as flight control S/W were developed independently.
In addition, KAI has been participating in the development of flight prototypes and systems for autonomously piloted OPPAV (Optionally Piloted PAV) through the Korea Aerospace Research Institute's Industrial Technology Innovation Project for the development of PAV technology since 2019.
"Unmanned technology is an area where explosive growth is expected," a KAI official said. "We will expand cooperation with domestic and foreign partners to pioneer both civilian and military markets at the same time."
