The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) will cooperate with the Korea Army Academy to develop AI-based future defence technology.

ETRI on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Army Academy at ETRI’s headquarters for joint research on AI-based future defence technology, the establishment of military operational concepts and field demonstrations. It is the first time the two organisations have signed an MOU at the heads-of-institutions level.

Under the agreement, the organisations will combine ETRI’s AI and ICT with the academy’s expertise in military and tactical fields. They will expand cooperation centred on individual research projects to an institution-level partnership and jointly study future defence AI technologies, including fighters and small-unit command and control, defence networks, and manned-unmanned integrated systems.

A key area of cooperation is ETRI’s “AI in-glasses technology development for personal AI agents” project, launched this year. AI in-glasses combines AI with glasses-type wearable devices to understand in real time the surrounding situation that a user sees and hears and provide needed information within the user’s field of view.

Applied to defence, fighters can identify nearby risk factors and operational information without continuously checking a separate device. Commanders can support rapid command decisions by integrating field information collected by multiple fighters.

ETRI plans to develop core technologies including “spatial intelligence” that recognises spaces and objects, “personal AI agents” that provide information tailored to a user’s situation, low-power high-resolution displays, augmented reality (AR) devices, and portable AI computing devices.

The Korea Army Academy will derive military operational concepts and user requirements based on its expertise in small-unit tactics and command procedures. It will support technology demonstrations and tests and evaluations using training facilities. The two organisations will also jointly study safety and reliability technologies that verify AI judgement results and ensure humans can make the final decisions.

ETRI President Se-woong Park (박세웅) said, “We will create defence AI technologies that can make a practical contribution to our military’s mission performance and combat capability enhancement, from supporting future fighters to command and control and defence networks.”