South Korea's Ministry of National Defense announced the next five years of defense science and technology innovation plan, to determine the key investment in the development of weapons and equipment.
On April 19, South Korea's Ministry of National Defense held a national science and technology advisory meeting to consider and adopt the "Basic Plan for Defense Science and Technology Innovation 2023-2037," which selected 30 strategic defense technologies in 10 major fields and focused on investing in the development of directed-energy weapons, hypersonic missiles, anddefense systems.
A model of Hycore hypersonicdisplayed by South Korea's Hanwha Group.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the 10 strategic technology areas include artificial intelligence, manned/unmanned coordinated operations, quantum information, space, energy, new materials, the Internet, sensors and electronic warfare, and dealing with weapons of mass destruction.
In terms of anti-missile technology, it includes long-range surface-to-air missiles (L-SAM), which is known as the "Korean version of SAD," long-range artillery interception systems, which is known as the "Korean version of Iron Dome," and the improved (third batch) version of medium-range surface-to-air missiles (M-SAM). Military sources said they are striving to develop their own technology to intercept missiles such as hypersonic ones and form a multi-layered anti-missile network.
Directed energy weapons are mainly referred to as "laser weapons". South Korea's Defense Agency announced in March last year, "the future challenges of the defense technology business promotion direction", announced the start of research and development of defense against hypersonic missiles 100 kilowatts of high-power lasertechnology.
Manned/unmanned combat is a key technology for the future battlefield and has a wide range of applications. Under the new operational concept, the domestically produced KF-21 Falcon supersonic fighter will perform coordinated combat missions with domestically produced unmanned stealth fighter aircraft (UBAV). In November 2021, the Defense Agency released a computerized special effects film demonstrating the KF-21 flying in a manned/unmanned formation with three UCAVs.
The KF-21 adopts a partially stealthy design, and the first prototype successfully flew in July last year. Four prototypes have already completed their maiden flights, and South Korea plans to finalize the prototype within the year and field it in 2026.
