I work at the KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute)

doing jobs related with designing aircrafts, and developing unmanned aircraft system.

My name is Sam Ok Koo.

Today, I am going to talk about

a topic involved in

the keyword on the screen,

UAS, the unmanned aircraft system.

Thanks to the development of science and technology,

so-called 3d(dull, dirty, difficult) jobs have been increasingly substituted by robotic machines.

On the extended front line of this trend

is there the aerial robot, or, UAS,

which does not need pilots.

While I am introducing you the area of the unmanned aircraft technology,

I would like to not only finish in UAS,

but also, dream the way to the future aerial vehicle with you.

These includes adapting UAS technologies,

which does not need pilots,

to airplanes people take.

For example,

like vehicles we drive,

untrained people

can easily take airplanes.

I may ask few questions.

Many people here seem to have experiences of taking airplanes.

Anyone has entered to an airplane cockpit?

It is quite rare.

Have anyone grabbed cockpit sticks at amusement parks?

(Laughs) Yes, quite many.

There seems to be many professions among the appliers.

Anyone is pilot currently?

No one seems to be. Is there one person?

OK. There is one person.

Actually I am a pilot.

Then, let's assume that,

airplanes requires prices, driving skills, and difficulties,

which are similar with those of cars.

Then, anyone want to take them and fly?

Yes. There are plenty.

Many people would take them.

It is an impossible dream right now,

but if we combine contents I am going to talk about today,

in the recent future,

I think there could be

aircrafts which requires

difficulties of driving cars

What do you think this number looks like to be?

If I ask this to elementary school students, they answer "1".

This number means the count of pilots

at an aircraft cockpit.

After WW II,

the aircraft manufactures turned their capability

in large bombers and cargo aircraft

into the commercial trans-continental transport.

There were five crew members in the cockpit

of the early passenger transports:

pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator, and radio operator.

They are required 10, or 20 hours,

for a long-distance flight.

In the early 60's the radio operator was eliminated from the cockpit,

due to the development of communications technologies.

There are four people left.

In the 70's the inertial navigation system was developed, expelled the navigator.

and there were a lot of long-distance flight experiences,

therefore, the navigator was expelled.

Navigator finds the routes

for long-distance flights,

which is not capable by pilots.

Flight engineers are still left.

A lot of instrumental panels you can see here.

Flight engineers fly for over 10 hours, looking at the wall.

While pilots sit towards the front,

flight engineers sit towards the sides,

monitoring a lot of instrumental panels

and could not be relaxed before the landing.

As the automation progressed,

in the 80's,

when people start to use personal mobile computers

those many instrumental panels go into a computer screen.

As you see in the screen, instrumental panels

are changed to digital panels in the computer screen,

and even user manuals are imported into computers.

From then, if you take airplanes now,

there have been only 2 crews remaining in the cockpit.

Let's guess what would happen there next. Who will be expelled first? (Laugh)

Perhaps, in recent future,

as you see here,

you may take an airplane, which has a cockpit but not a pilot,

for overseas trips.

Then, we might not need any pilot.

Actually, a long-distance trans-continental flight

without any pilot,

was proven by the small UAS in this picture in 1998.

It took 26+ hours

to cross the Atlantic for about 3200km

from Newfoundland to Ireland.

This airplane is a very small one with 12kg weight.

Just after then, 10 years from now,

the unmanned trans-Pacific flight was done in 2001 by the Global Hawk,

the most sophisticated and highest performance UAS.

From California to an air base in Australia,

it took 22 hours for flying 13000km, and recorded in the Guinness Book of Records,

for a long-distance flight record without pilots.

There is basically

no technological barrier

in long-range flight without a pilot on board.

Even though, most UAS is for military purposes.

More than 93% is used as military,

The typical example is the Predator, you can see in this picture.

It is a beautiful-looking airplane, but has a scary name, Predator.

But in the beginning, the airplane also used for

ground detection, which was a very peaceful purpose.

It was practically used for ground detections at NASA,

or scientific researches.

It started to be used in war at Bosnia in 1995, and Afghanistan in 2000,

and started to be armed.

As you see now, there are 2 missiles under the beautiful airplane.

What do you expect their usages are for?

This video is recorded by the Predator, which is a real situation.

A video, which detected a specific target at Afghanistan,

and attacked the building directly above it.

2 hellfire missiles are launched.

You can see a car running away.

A person driving the car was lucky.

The target was at the different place.

Now, from the sky, in the dark, people who didn't recognized the plane flying,

were hit by the missile from somewhere, and died.

If I show this video to elementary school students,

they seems to be interested like watching interesting movies.

But kids, let's think as you were in the place. (Laughs)

What if the people in there were you, or your brothers at military service?

What if the plane up above air was from your bad neighbor country?

Think of the Manchu war of 1636, and the Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592...

Think about those airplanes...

Children's face became solid and it became silent.

I end the story with "Therefore, you need to study hard." (Laughs)

Because of those reasons,

Korea is investigating about UAS.

In this big picture, it is showing 송골매 which was developed in 90's,

and is used for the researches related with observations in the military and in the sky.

The next one which is at right upper corner, is 'Remoeye-006',

which is sent as troops with Korean soldiers to Afghanistan

standing guard duty.

From among these, the one which should be focused is at the right bottom:

A helicopter, 'Remo-H'.

Even though more than 93% of UASs are used for military purposes,

one of the most successful applications of civil unmanned aircraft technology is the agricultural helicopters.

It is made in Korea. Capable of flying autonomously...

If we input the coordinate of a rice paddy, it automatically scans, and sprays aerosols.

This can cover 6000 평 (20,000 square meters) in a flight mission of 15-minutes.

This increases the productivity very much.

In addition, there shows many aircraft models...

In research institutions, or schools,

There have been many researches related to UAS.

Even though UAS is needed for the national defense,

it have been researched hard, not to be fallen, behind the technology developments,

such as making airplanes unmanned or automated.

The Smart UAV Program

is another representative UAS-technology development program

of our country.

As you can see in the screen,

I am developing UAS-technology including that vehicle.

This vehicle has 2 large tilt-rotors,

which is different from other vehicles.

When take-off or landing, rotors are headed to above direction,

so that it could do vertical take-off, or landing.

If it is speeded up, rotors are tilted to front direction.

When it speeded up to the certain speed, for example,

250km/h like usual airplanes, it becomes like this.

Fixed-wing mode cruise.

When it is in helicopter mode,

rotors covers all weights to make the plane lift.

On the other hand, in fixed-wing mode, wings lift the plane,

and rotors generate projectile force.

This increases the fuel efficiency very much.

Among all world-wide airplane companies,

only Bell hellicopters have this feature.

We became the second.

There can be many core technologies of this airplane.

The most important one is that

transitioning from the helicopter mode to the fixed-wing mode by tilting the rotors.

Some people might think that,

just after taking off, it can tilt rotors very quick, and go on.

But this process is very complicated.

When taking off, it is totally a helicopter.

It controls the flight depending on 2 large tilt-rotors.

When it became airplane mode,

it controls the flight just like other fixed-wing airplanes do.

The control system is totally changed,

so the intermediate processes should be changed gradually.

The core technology is in that part.

Unfortunately, or fortunately,

There is no company, but only Bell helicopter in USA, who has the technology.

And the technology was strategic, so we needed to develop it autonomously.

To develop the flight control technology autonomously,

we created a small airplane in the picture.

The big picture is in full scale. It weighs about 1000kg.

And the front small one is 40% downscaled model.

Using this model, we did flight test,

and solved the mystery of transitioning from helcopter mode to fixed-wing mode.

We call tilting wings as tilting angle,

Tilt in English,

When take-off or landing, it is defined as 90 degree,

and when airplane mode, it is defined as 0 degree.

<Smart unmanned airplane miniature automated flight>

The process had many complications.

When we do flight test, we start at 90 degree,

flying in helicopter mode, and then lands automatically.

After that, the control system should change gradually.

It changed a bit, for example, changed to 80 degree, and then came back.

In the next flight, it tried to 70 degree.

We decided to try it until 30 degree at the first time,

but it became better, so we succeeded 23 degree.

Our researchers liked it very much.

It was rolled heavily at 45 degree.

We succeeded at 23 degree, so we changed our goal to 20 degree.

We had a tremendous happening then.

There are many new generation people here... That OTL is not the abbreviation of unmanned airplane system.

We should not pronounce it as OTL.

There must be sorrows and frustrations.

When we made airplanes and flew them,

like rubber-powered planes or gliders at your childhoods,

you feel yourself excited when you made them by your own hand and flew them.

But if you make those unique thing,

Umm.. it is unutterable.

But developing this flying vehicle has a different part compared with other machines.

There is an unavoidable destiny.

It is this.

During flight test, tilt degree passed 30 degree, and before it reached to 20 degree, this happened.

It is required to be recovered gradually to land down, but at the moment, that happened.

This is very critical to airplane development researchers.

We cannot control at the moment, which is called spin.

Any control is possible.

Shivers were sent down our spines. Our mind went blank.

That's the reason why my hair became white. (Laughs)

To break through the 20 degree barrier,

from then, 20 degree drinks were abandoned to our teammates.

Our goal was 0 degree. So, after then, until we reach 0 degree,

we kept mind about 0 degree during eating pork, or broiled eels.

Finally, we succeeded.