South Korea has developed a cutting-edge air defense early warning, command and control system using digital communications technology, the country's arms procurement agency said Thursday.

The Command Control and Alert, or C2A, system will enter service in 2019 at local military units, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

It has teamed up with the state-run Agency for Defense Development for the project that began in 2010, also joined by more than 20 domestic firms.

Currently, South Korean troops rely on radio-based verbal communications for the spread of air threat data and fire control.

It takes several minutes to share real-time information on related situations.

But the digital C2A system will cut the time to seconds and also provide a real-time picture of the battlespace, DAPA said.

The homegrown system is apparently on par with advanced foreign ones, such as FAAD of the United States, France's MARTHA and Turkey's Sky Water, it added.

"(Our military) has become able to effectively cope with the enemy's air threats by sharing visualized information on battlespace situations," Yoo Byung-jik, a senior DAPA official, said. (Yonhap)