A domestic research team unveiled a technology that integrates data, networks, and artificial intelligence (DNA) into drones and held a public contest to encourage the development of drone services utilizing this technology.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 13th that it held the 'DNA+ Drone Challenge 2021' together with the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Lim Hye-sook) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) and disclosed the interim results of the 'DNA+ Drone Technology Development Project'.

The DNA+ Drone Technology Development Project is a project to develop a drone service platform based on 5G communication technology that enables drones to fly autonomously and in groups without human visibility and utilize related data in real time.

On the platform, you can experience drone data, AI, control, and BM monitoring services provided by the research team.

ETRI is using this platform to hold a public participation event with the goal of advancing drone technology and discovering new business models.held the 'DNA+ Drone Challenge 2021'.

The event ran for approximately two months until the 24th of last month, with a total of 90 teams participating.

Participants were given three challenge areas. First, the "Data Challenge" involved using platform-provided data and AI models to identify missing persons in drone-captured search footage.

To carry out the mission, the research team disclosed to the participants the DNA+drone platform and workspace developed by ETRI, the DNA+drone AI platform developed by Acryl Co., Ltd., the 4K drone video data of missing persons filmed by Aion Co., Ltd., and the missing persons learning data and AI model produced for the challenge by GY Networks Co., Ltd., and provided KISTI's computing infrastructure for online learning.

As a result of the event, three universities received the Minister's Award in each category.

The Sookmyung Women's University team analyzed learning data bias to ensure that high missing person detection rates were maintained even in diverse environments, and attempted to augment the data to compensate for this.

The Jeonbuk National University team successfully detected and automatically recovered a missing person even in a windy outdoor environment.

The Kwangwoon University team presented the idea of a drone-based high-definition live broadcast that tracks objects in real time and allows viewers to film from various viewpoints of their choice.

The winning teams will be provided with up to 100 million won in research funding through an R&D necessity assessment and will be given the opportunity to participate in future projects. In addition, the data augmented by participants through the data challenge will be selected and made public at a later date.

ETRI's Im Chae-deok, head of the DNA+ Drone Technology Development Division, said, "Through this event, we were able to verify the interim results of the project with universities and companies with excellent research capabilities and ideas. He said, “We will continue to pursue live and moving R&D and strive to quickly create new drone services.”