Next-Level Drone Detection: ETRI’s New Radar Tech Can Catch Drones Before They’re Too Close

The Korea Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced yesterday that they have developed a technology to detect and track illegal drones involved in unauthorized flights, terrorism, and privacy violations. This technology, which uses a radar system integrated with EO (Electro-Optical) and IR (Infrared), has been successfully transferred to Samjeong Solutions and is ready for practical use.

The EO/IR radar system developed by ETRI automatically directs EO/IR cameras toward targets detected by the radar, allowing the system to detect, track, and identify drones. The system is based on the radar and EO/IR subsystem. The radar subsystem, co-developed by ETRI and Hanwha Systems, is designed to detect small drones within a 5 5-kilometer (3-mile) range.

The EO/IR subsystem, developed by ETRI, receives target information from the radar, captures video using EO/IR cameras, and then detects, tracks, and identifies drones based on that footage. This subsystem can track long-range targets up to 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) away and determine if a flying object is a drone within a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) range.

ETRI transferred this technology to Samjeong Solutions in 2022. Samjeong Solutions, with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Police Agency, successfully commercialized it through the “Short-Term Public Safety R&D Technology Commercialization Project.”

Samjeong Solutions successfully developed an integrated low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle response system. On July 18, they registered their newly developed vehicle-mounted solution as an innovative product on the Public Procurement Service’s online marketplace.

The research team expects this technology to be used to monitor illegal drones at major events, public facilities, and sports stadiums, detect drone intrusions along borders and coastlines, and monitor drones that deviate from their reported flight paths in drone traffic control.