The South Korean government wants drones to scout fish

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South Korea’s government unveiled a plan to commercialize unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by 2023 to help deep-sea fishing vessels find fish.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy released the plan at a recent press conference’ saying it wants to open up an era of UAVs by successfully launching a fish-finding drone.
According to Korea Joongang Daily, deep-sea fishing vessels currently employ privately owned helicopters to find fish shoals in the southern Pacific Ocean and off western Africa, but a shortage of pilots has been a concern.
“The difficulties of finding pilots to do this work hurt the overall performance of the deep-sea fishing industry,” said Moon Seung-wook, director general of the System Industry Policy Department at the Industry Ministry.

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“The helicopters were also old, raising safety concerns. Deep-sea fishing work usually takes months. Not many pilots wanted to work for this industry.”
According to the ministry’s data, about 700 deep-sea fishing vessels exist worldwide. However, only 400 units are actually operating due to a shortage of pilots for fish-finding helicopters. The government hopes drones are the solution.
Korea is technologically ready, says the ministry, as the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) completed developing tilt-rotor high-speed UAVs in 2012 after 10 years of research.
Since last April, the technology has been applied to advanced military-use UAVs that fly as fast as 500 kilometers per hour (310 miles per hour) for export.
Two units of fish-finding private-use drones are designed to fly in a team at speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour. They are able to fly as far as 200 kilometers (124 miles). The UAVs can stay in the air for up to six hours, compared to 2.5 hours for helicopters.