South Korea will spend 7.3 billion won ($6.51 million) this year to develop innovative technologies for aerial, marine and ground-based unmanned vehicles, the government said Sunday.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said it has finalized the scale of various projects to secure core technologies that can allow autonomous vehicles to operate in the air, on land and at sea.  

“(The government) will make efforts to overcome the limits of commercialization of unmanned vehicles and support the creation of core technologies that could impact the broader market going forward,” said Ko Seo-gon, a ministry official in charge of the projects.

Of the total budget, 1.1 billion won is earmarked for the development of critical technologies that are necessary for all unmanned vehicles, with another 800 million won to be used in such areas as artificial intelligence that could be applied to the vehicles, officials said.

The ministry said 4 billion won will be spent on creating unmanned aircraft system traffic management, a method of managing drone traffic.

The system is not only essential to efficiently and safely operate unmanned drones flying at low altitude but will open up new opportunities in urban air mobility logistics, officials said. (Yonhap)