A full-scale conflict with North Korea could leave the Korean Peninsula littered with millions of explosive remnants of war (ERW), prompting the need for South Korea to adopt an integrated drone and artificial intelligence (AI) based clearance system, according to researchers from a government-funded think tank.

A Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA) report released Tuesday warned that South Korea’s current explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) capabilities, while adequate for peacetime incidents, would likely be overwhelmed by the scale of contamination expected after a major war with North Korea. 

The study was co-authored by senior researcher Park Ki-sung and research fellow