Hanwha Aerospace is working with KAIST to develop autonomous driving technology in the field. The plan is to proactively foster unmanned technology and in-house experts in the defense sector to adapt to future environmental changes that require innovative technologies due to a decrease in combat manpower.

On the 26th, Hanwha Aerospace held a ceremony to unveil the ‘Autonomy Hub,’ an autonomous driving technology research center, at KAIST in Daejeon, attended by Hanwha Aerospace CEO Son Jae-il and KAIST President Lee Kwang-hyung.

The goal of Autonomy Hub is to develop world-class off-road autonomous driving technology that will allow military unmanned vehicles to find the optimal route to reach their destination in harsh environments without prior information.

To this end, detailed tasks such as △recognizing the surrounding environment in rough terrain, △setting a route reflecting terrain information, and △estimating location in response to jamming that disrupts radio waves will be carried out by the first half of 2026, and excellent research personnel will also be fostered.

Hanwha Aerospace has already developed the 'Arion-SMET', a multi-purpose unmanned vehicle that applies Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) technology, and is securing autonomous driving data for military use.

KAIST also has world-class research capabilities in related fields such as robotics and computer vision. Professor Myung-Hyeon Lee of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who is participating in this year's Autonomy Hub, also won the Quadruped Robot Autonomous Walking Competition (QRC) held at the '2023 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),' the largest global academic conference in the robotics field, beating out competitors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.

KAIST President Lee Kwang-hyung said, “Through collaboration between Hanwha Aerospace and KAIST researchers, we will do our best to secure world-class technology in the field of autonomous driving and help domestic companies lead the global market.”

Son Jae-il, CEO of Hanwha Aerospace, said, “We are honored to be able to conduct cutting-edge research for the future with KAIST, which has the best research capabilities in Korea,” and emphasized, “We will secure cutting-edge technologies and contribute to Korea’s independent national defense and industrialization.”