On 12 December, at Hanwha Systems’ new business site in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province. Upon entering the third floor of the main manufacturing building, the largest among the five buildings including the main office, a simulator resembling an aircraft cockpit came into view. It was the cockpit-type Integrated Bridge System (IBS) for naval vessels that Hanwha Systems is developing for the first time in Korea. This ship control system consolidates all functions and displays within arm’s reach so that only two operators, as in an aircraft cockpit, can perform bridge operations such as steering, communications and navigation that previously required 6–8 crew members.

When the steering device, shaped like an aircraft yoke, was moved slightly while seated in the simulator, information such as the ship’s position, tilt and bearing appeared as a head-up display (HUD) on the forward screen depicting the ship’s front view.

At Hanwha Systems’ Gumi plant, which stands on a total site area of 89,000㎡ (approximately 27,000 pyeong) and comprises five buildings including an exhibition hall (main office), research building, development and test building, manufacturing building and MRO building, the “eyes, ears and brain” of Korea’s defense industry were being produced. Kim Yong-jin, Executive Vice President and head of the Gumi plant at Hanwha Systems, said, “Radar systems, integrated combat systems and electro-optical surveillance equipment for aircraft, naval vessels and missiles produced here are installed not only in Hanwha products but also across the weapons of Korean defense companies such as Hyundai Rotem and LIG Nex1,” adding, “About 30% of the Gumi plant’s sales come from overseas exports.”

Throughout the manufacturing building, “vibration-free clean rooms” reminiscent of semiconductor fabs were located in various sections. The combined clean room area alone is about 1,500 pyeong. These facilities are for the production of radar semiconductor modules and optical devices such as rangefinders for the K2 tank. The company noted that, in these clean rooms, “vibration is at about one-hundredth the level of a standard building, and dust is at about one-fifth the level of a large hospital operating room.”

The optical devices and other equipment produced in this way undergo precise testing at a test facility on the fourth floor. When the zoom of the rangefinder was focused on a building on the mountainside beyond the highway—so distant that it appeared blurred, almost hazy to the naked eye—and the measurement button was pressed, the information “4,620m” immediately appeared on the screen. This rangefinder, which is mounted on the K2 tank, the next-generation main battle tank developed and produced by Hyundai Rotem, can precisely measure the distance to targets located five times farther than the K2’s effective firing range. In fact, according to the Ministry of National Defense and other sources, the K2 tank hit targets at a distance of more than 4.5km with a 100% hit rate during a combined joint exercise held in the United Arab Emirates in September this year, surprising UAE officials.

On the first floor, in the Cheongung system radar assembly and test area, anechoic facilities (spaces where sharp structures are installed across walls and ceilings to prevent reflection of electromagnetic or sound waves) were installed in various locations. Personnel gathered under a radar rotating rapidly at one revolution every 1.5 seconds to examine the equipment. They were working on upgrading the fire-control radar of the “Cheongung-I”, a surface-to-air missile system capable of shooting down aircraft, into a “Cheongung-II” radar capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. Park Hyuk, Executive Vice President and head of the Radar Business Center, said, “Because ballistic missiles fly at speeds of Mach 4–5 or more, far exceeding those of aircraft, radar precision and processing speed must be significantly higher,” adding, “This is also where we carry out upgrades from passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radars, which can detect only one target at a time, to active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars that can simultaneously detect multiple targets.”

Hanwha Systems expects that full-scale operation of this new plant, which was completed late last month, will increase its production capacity by more than 30%. The company stated, “As the defense market is expected to grow for more than the next 10 years, we will introduce additional production facilities on the site and install automation systems to ensure that the advantages of Korea’s defense industry—on-time delivery and high-quality production—are maintained.”

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