The R&D demonstration project for the commercialization of Korean Urban Air Mobility (K-UAM) has begun in earnest and is expected to serve as a stepping stone for the UAM industry.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Minister Won Hee-ryong) announced that it is launching Phase 1 of the Korean Urban Air Mobility (K-UAM) demonstration project with the goal of commercializing Urban Air Mobility (UAM) by 2025.

Phase 1 of the demonstration is planned to be carried out by broadly dividing it into a single field of research and development (R&D) and an integrated operation field. In the single field of R&D demonstration starting on August 21, five domestic consortia and companies—including Robigos and Fine Inty in traffic management, and Kencoa Aerospace, Planar, and Boltline in airframe and operation—will participate and have the opportunity to verify their developed technologies.

In particular, this demonstration is expected to serve as a stepping stone for entry into the UAM industry by supporting the technological development of traffic management systems and UAM scaled-down aircraft developed in-house by domestic startups and SMEs.

SKT, Kakao Mobility, and others are participating in the integrated operations sector, and starting in January 2024, they plan to conduct demonstrations of integrated operations such as flight, traffic management, and vertiports using UAM aircraft, as well as noise measurements at each flight phase, with the goal of commercializing services in 2025.

The main scope of the demonstration includes: △integrated inspection of the safety of hardware and software for vertiport operations and UAM traffic management services; △roles among stakeholders through communication, navigation, monitoring, and information sharing and exchange; and △response plans to prepare for abnormal situations such as bad weather and equipment failure.