Following the announcement from South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) that it has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) autonomous navigation technology, Mathew George, Ph.D, Analyst, Aerospace, Defense and Security at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

"DAPA identifies the UAV autonomous navigation technology as a building block for the future battlespace. South Korea can progress this technology to function like the Loyal Wingman program and pair future UAVs with the upcoming KF-21 Boramae and have an independent, autonomous system carrying out missions with the optimal resources. There is also a possibility to develop a network of UAVs that function as a swarm to optimally conduct surveillance of areas and decide on the best course of action and number of UAVs to conduct that mission.

"Another field that made a mention in the announcement was Urban Air Mobility to reach destinations in the most optimal route. Similar ideas on autonomous driving capability were shared last month but in the unmanned ground vehicles domain with announcements from DAPA and Hanwha. It seems that South Korea is not just embracing a future of interconnected devices and autonomous systems but is also taking active steps to be a major player and provider of the building blocks of future."