Following the announcement from South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) and Hanwha Defense;

Mathew George, Ph.D, Analyst, Aerospace, Defense and Security at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“DAPA and Hanwha made separate announcements of the completion of the exploratory development phase for South Korea’s unmanned search vehicles that began in 2018. This is a significant step for South Korea as it will help it to focus on remote/autonomous capabilities that will help minimize injuries of troops and improve mission capabilities of an armored unit. Hanwha can now go ahead and start the mass production of the vehicles and consequently, seek to be a serious competitor in the unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) space.

“However, an interesting aspect of this is not just the development of the UGV search and rescue or logistics, but the presence of a remote controlled weapon system (RCWS) that allows for the future integration of weapons that will expand the capabilities of the UGV to convert it into a combat vehicle and/or for surveillance and reconnaissance missions too.

“According to GlobalData’s Global Military Unmanned Ground Vehicle Market report, the Asia-Pacific region alone will grow at 3.64% from US$174m in 2021 to reach US$249m by 2031, with South Korea being one of the top spenders in the region.

“Hanwha’s new 6×6 UGV is touted to be unveiled in July 2021. With its hybrid transmission allowing for reduced noise in operations, remote control or autonomous driving which includes obstacle detection, stopping and avoidance and future expansion in capability, Hanwha expects to target the export market with it. With a growing interest in unmanned capabilities to not just augment the soldier, but to conduct independent missions in the future, Hanwha’s and South Korea’s focus and progress on unmanned systems will help them to be serious players in this market as they are in the artillery and trainer aircraft markets too.”