Discussion on improving laws and systems to revitalize the drone industry
27 drone exhibition booths offering industrial drone demonstrations and hands-on opportunities.

Drones are a key challenge and hot topic of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The drone industry is highly scalable, promising, and deeply felt by the public.

At the '2017 Republic of Korea Drone Policy Forum' held on the lawn of the National Assembly building on the 24th, Chairman of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee Cho Jeong-sik mentioned the importance of the drone industry and said this.

This forum was held as an extension of the 'Drone Industry Development Basic Plan Public Hearing' held on the 19th of last month, and was hosted by Chairman Cho Jeong-sik of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and organized by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, the Korea Drone Industry Association, the Korea Transport Institute, and the Korea ITS Society.

Drones for day/night video acquisition, transmission tower/railway diagnostics, 3D mapping using drones, agricultural drones, and real-time weather observation drones mounted on small UAVs were on display. Participants also enjoyed drone racing by members of the Drone Racing Association, industrial drone demonstrations, and hands-on experiences.

MathWorks introduced the National Emergency Disaster Response System (SERS). SERS leverages the latest cyber-physical systems (CPS) technologies to support efficient rescue mission planning and execution by Mission Control Centers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and autonomous vehicles.

We use analytics and facial recognition algorithms on live video streams to quickly locate victims, analyze rescue requests and observation data from disaster sites, and leverage optimization algorithms and high-performance computing to run millions of disaster recovery scenarios.

Kim Young-woo, Managing Director of MathWorks Korea, said, "Following our support for student drone autonomous flight design at the Mini Drone Autonomous Flight Competition in July, we showcased SERS, powered by MathWorks solutions, at this policy forum. In SERS, drones play a key role in rescue missions, performing reconnaissance, video transmission, and Wi-Fi installation. “In the future, MathWorks will strengthen its support for drones so that they can be widely used in a wider range of industries through the stability of drone hardware and software as well as highly accurate design,” he said.


In the afternoon, presentations and discussions were held on measures to improve the laws for drone management, measures to improve the drone pilot qualification and registration system, measures to introduce a special night/beyond visual line of sight flight approval system, and the current status of the drone business following the system improvement.

Chairman Cho said, “Although we may be a step behind advanced countries, we have the opportunity to become a leading country in the drone industry by leveraging our infrastructure development capabilities and accumulated knowledge.” He added, “As drones become more popular, safety and personal information security issues will become more important, as well as laws and regulations.”

Song Ki-hyun, director of the Korea Transport Institute, explained the legal progress being made on drone management. He explained that the relevant laws and limitations are being analyzed and suggestions for improvement are being made, divided into drone definitions, aircraft classification, registration management, operation management, pilot qualifications and training, damage compensation and insurance, personal information protection, and enforcement/penalties/accident investigations.

Director Song advised, "To reflect the characteristics of unmanned aerial vehicles, the Aviation Business Act and the Aviation Safety Act must be revised." He continued, "We are currently in the drone introduction phase, and we are gathering requests for legal reform. After a transitional period of improving the current laws, when the time for popularization approaches, a special law on drones or unmanned vehicles will need to be enacted."