HANGZHOU, May 20 (Xinhua) -- An airport in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou announced Saturday that it uses new technology to control civilian drones and improve flight safety.

The "electric fence" technology will cut signal connection between a drone and its remote controller when the unmanned aircraft is less closer than 10 kilometers to the airport. The drone will not receive further flying signals and will return to its departure site the way it came.

The move comes after an online video clip in January showed a civilian drone approaching a flying aircraft to take photos near the airport.

In recent years, civilian drones have been widely used in fields such as agricultural pest control, environmental monitoring and geographic surveying.

The growing popularity of drones in the country has brought some safety concerns.

Civilian drones weighing more than 250 grams will now be registered under real names from June 1.

The regulator will also release information of areas surrounding airports that ban the flying of civilian drones and work with local governments and public security authorities on unregulated civilian drones.