Autonomous driving technology verification underway at K-City
5G's technical characteristics facilitate the implementation of Level 3 autonomous vehicles.

KT and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced on the 14th that they signed a business agreement to cooperate in the development of autonomous driving technology applicable to 5G commercial networks.

With this agreement, KT will be able to verify the 5G autonomous driving technology currently under development as part of the '2018 Inter-Ministry Giga KOREA Project (hereinafter referred to as the Giga Korea Project)' at the 'Autonomous Driving Experimental City (hereinafter referred to as K-City)' located in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province.

The technology that KT is developing is '5G V2X (Vehicle to Everything),' which connects vehicles, mobile devices, and traffic information facilities through a 5G network. 5G V2X can provide autonomous driving services and next-generation Cooperative-Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) more smoothly and safely.
Through collaboration with KT, the Korea Transportation Safety Authority plans to leverage KT's autonomous driving technology and communications infrastructure operation know-how to enhance the competitiveness of K-City's autonomous driving test bed.

To this end, KT and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority will prioritize building a 5G network in K-City. The technological characteristics of 5G networks, such as ultra-high speed and low latency, can be used to process information about traffic conditions in real time, making it easy to implement Level 3 or higher autonomous vehicles.

In addition, the two organizations plan to continue this collaboration through ongoing technological exchanges, including joint research and technology development on autonomous vehicle solutions based on 5G networks and hosting seminars in the mobile communications field.

“The advanced autonomous driving technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has a ripple effect not only on automobiles but also on various industries,” said Kwon Byung-yoon, CEO of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority. “We hope that K-City’s 5G communication network will be the driving force that brings forward the era of autonomous driving.”

Kim Hyung-wook, executive director of KT’s Platform Business Planning Office, said, “The combination of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority’s K-City and KT’s 5G technology, which possesses unrivaled know-how in the fields of connected cars and autonomous driving, will create an environment in which safer autonomous driving technology can be developed,” adding, “KT plans to work to ensure that 5G can be utilized in various industries beyond the traffic safety field.”

Meanwhile, K-City, scheduled to open this year, is a test bed exclusively for autonomous vehicles being built on a 110,000-pyeong site within the Korea Transportation Safety Authority's Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute with support from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement. To reproduce the actual road evaluation environment, five evaluation environments (downtown, community, dedicated automobile roads, suburban roads, and autonomous parking facilities) are being created and roads, transportation facilities, and communication environments are being implemented.