LG Uplus said Tuesday that the mobile carrier will make inroads into the drone business, at an event held to demonstrate a cloud-based drone controlling system.

At a press conference held at the telecom firm’s headquarters in Yongsan, central Seoul, the company demonstrated spotting a missing child with a drone flying over Sky Park in Sangam-dong in the northwestern part of the city, taking just three minutes.

The drone communicated with the company’s U+ Smart Drone Cloud Control System at the headquarters by sending real-time video through internet protocol television, which provided weather information such as the temperature, wind speed and direction. 

“With a network connection, anyone can fly a drone by controlling it through our company’s system with no limit on distance,” said Kwon Yong-hoon, head of the drone team at LG Uplus. “Use of drones will be expanded when the fifth-generation network is established, which will enable transmitting 8K ahigh-quality video with no delay.”

The drone control system can be accessed via users’ PCs, tablets or smartphones, allowing a single person to fly multiple drones at the same time.

LG Uplus plans to foster the drone business as a major growth-driving business in the 5G network era, the company said.

The mobile carrier on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with Hanwha Techwin and two other local drone makers to embark on the drone business.

According to global market researchers TIL Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global market for drones is forecast to grow to 13.5 trillion ($12.3 billion) won by 2023, from 7.5 trillion won recorded in 2014.

Korea currently has a number of regulations on operations of personal drones. However, the government is moving to ease unnecessary restrictions as part of efforts to boost the emerging industry.

LG Uplus is preparing to launch a 3-D map, radio wave map and real-time navigating services for drones by 2018.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)