Vololand Selected for Three Projects in Korea’s 2026 MOLIT Drone Commercialization Program
By Kyunghoon Lee, Monthly Chosun liberty@chosun.com
- A pest control drone is spraying pesticides. Photo = Newsis
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) announced on March 11 that it will expand the use of drones for public services such as island delivery and disaster monitoring. To support this initiative, the government has selected 30 local governments to build drone demonstration cities and 19 companies to participate in drone technology commercialization. A total of 44 municipalities and 55 companies applied for the program.
The Drone Commercialization Support Program consists of three main components:
(1) development of complete drone platforms across five key sectors—firefighting, logistics, aviation safety, agriculture, and infrastructure management;
(2) localization of critical components such as motors and batteries; and
(3) commercialization of core technologies including collision avoidance, anti-jamming systems, and video transmission equipment.
MOLIT aims to accelerate the development of domestically produced drones and bring them to market through real-world demonstrations.
Vololand has been selected as a development partner in two sectors—agriculture and infrastructure management—under the complete drone platform program.
In the agricultural sector, the company will develop an automated spraying and monitoring system with a payload capacity of 30 kg and a flight time of approximately 15 minutes. The system will incorporate agriculture-specific obstacle avoidance technology, while localizing key components such as the airframe, motor, battery, flight control computer, and data link.
A key focus of the project is the localization of both spraying (pesticide and fertilizer application) and crop growth diagnostics technologies. By integrating the drone platform, spraying system, and data analytics platform, Vololand aims to strengthen its competitiveness in the agricultural drone market.
In the infrastructure management sector, Vololand will collaborate with Sierra Base to develop an automated drone inspection system for facilities such as bridges, tunnels, and underground structures. The project includes the design and production of a domestically developed autonomous drone equipped with LiDAR sensors, as well as the development of AI-based damage detection technology and analysis software.
In the core technology category, the company will also pursue the commercialization of an intelligent integrated navigation system for small drones.
In addition, Vololand has been selected for the “2026 Drone Demonstration City Program (K-Drone Delivery Commercialization Sector),” marking its third consecutive year participating in the initiative since 2024. This year, the company plans to deploy delivery drones built entirely with domestically developed core components, including flight controllers, GPS modules, ESCs (electronic speed controllers), motors, propellers, and batteries.