The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has developed the “Transformer,” an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which can take off vertically and then fly at high speed.

The smart aircraft, equipped with high-tech equipment such as heat-detection and an infrared camera, can be used for military purposes, according to sources at KARI. It can carry out surveillance missions within a 400-km radius for five hours.

The UAV can take off from the deck of a destroyer vertically and fly tens of kilometers to spot enemy warships.

It can detect the positions and movements of enemy forces in advance, thus minimizing possible damages of allies.

The Transformer, especially equipped with SAR radar using microwaves, and heat-detection, infrared camera, is capable of conducting search, surveillance and watchdog missions both during daytime and nighttime, and even in fog.

Development of the unmanned aircraft is part of programs for “remote-controlled war,” which has been featured in some films, sources said.

In Afghanistan, UAVs played a very important role of searching, tracking and attacking targets which, like a vehicle of Osama bin Laden, could not be detected with normal methods.

At present, hundreds of UAVs are flying over the skies of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan on a variety of military missions.

If there had been no support from UAVs in those countries, the personnel and material damages the United States suffered there would have snowballed, the sources said.