Hyundai Autoever (CEO Seo Jeong-sik) is realizing the direction of future advanced roads through Korea's first commercial vehicle autonomous driving test bed.

Hyundai Autoever (CEO Seo Jeong-sik) consortium announced on the 18th that it had won a contract for the 'Commercial Vehicle High-Speed Autonomous Driving Comprehensive Evaluation Facility (Control Evaluation Integrated System Division) Construction Service' from the Automotive Convergence Technology Institute.

Among the consortiums that submitted bids for this project, Hyundai Autoever, KT Consortium, and Lotte Information & Communication Consortium, Hyundai Autoever was ultimately selected as the operator after receiving the highest score, beating out its competitors.

This project aims to establish Korea's first commercial vehicle autonomous driving test bed and integrated control system on the Saemangeum Waterfront Road (SMTB) located on the approximately 11km section of the Saemangeum Seawall and the Saemangeum Driving Proving Ground (SMPG) located at the driving test site within the Joint Institute of Automotive Technology (JIAT), and to realize the direction of future advanced roads that support high-speed autonomous (platoon) driving vehicles.

The scope of the project is as follows: △Establishment of an integrated control evaluation facility for autonomous cooperative (platoon) driving of commercial vehicles (roadside evaluation infrastructure at autonomous vehicle driving test site, integration of autonomous driving control evaluation system, and electric/communication infrastructure linked to autonomous vehicle evaluation system); △Establishment of a driving evaluation road environment considering autonomous cooperative and platoon high-speed driving tests; △Establishment of an autonomous driving road infrastructure environment linked to C-ITS considering autonomous cooperative and platoon driving tests; △Vehicle information collection terminal Construction △ Construction of an integrated evaluation system, etc.

This project aims to achieve the early commercialization of autonomous (platoon) commercial vehicles. Autonomous driving in commercial vehicles differs from autonomous driving in passenger cars due to platooning. Therefore, platooning must be tested on a special test bed. Platooning, simply put, is a driving technique that involves driving vehicles at equal intervals on a road, much like a train.

The lead vehicle acts as a windbreak, improves fuel efficiency for the vehicles behind, and shares real-time information between vehicles, providing numerous benefits such as preventing sudden stops, speeding, and pileups. Testing platooning requires scenarios that can represent all scenarios, along with road conditions and an integrated control system to implement them.

To achieve this, Hyundai AutoEver developed a set of internationally certified evaluation criteria, including cognitive performance, judgment performance, and control performance, as well as test evaluation criteria based on autonomous driving capabilities, to create a test bed that can be utilized by everyone from parts manufacturers to finished vehicles. Furthermore, the company defined the testing environment from the perspective of the autonomous vehicle's operational design domain (ODD) and proposed a plan to establish an integrated control center capable of processing massive, specialized data.

Hyundai Autoever has experience building an integrated control system for autonomous vehicle driving tests by participating in the K-City autonomous driving test city project in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province in 2018. While previous projects were able to conduct autonomous driving tests in experimental road environments, the Saemangeum commercial vehicle autonomous driving test bed differs in that it allows for real-road testing and provides not only autonomous driving but also a high-speed platoon driving test environment at speeds exceeding 100 km/h.

A Hyundai AutoEver representative said, “We have successfully built the world’s largest autonomous, clustered, and high-speed driving test bed, and we will play a key role in leading future vehicle technology by taking on the role of a key pillar of autonomous driving technology along with precision maps.”