Korea Transportation Safety Authority Signs MOU with U.S. Autonomous Driving Test City M-City

On the 15th (local time), the Korea Transportation Safety Authority announced on the 16th that it signed a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation regarding the verification and demonstration of connected autonomous driving technology between its affiliated institute, the Automobile Safety Research Institute K-City, and the University of Michigan's M-City in Michigan, USA.

M-City is the world's first autonomous driving dedicated experimental city, located in Michigan, USA, with an area of 130,000㎡ (completed in July 2015).

On the 15th (local time) at M-City, Eom Myeong-so, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (first from the right), Eom Seong-bok, President of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority's Automobile Safety Research Institute (second), and Henry Ryu, Director of M-City (third), signed a business agreement and took a commemorative photo.
[Photo by Korea Transportation Safety Authority]

Through this memorandum of understanding, both institutions plan to overcome the limitations of previous autonomous driving experimental cities and share a physical-virtual environment evaluation platform that combines real roads and virtual environments.

They will also share evaluation scenarios and representative cases to facilitate the entry of domestic companies into the U.S. market and plan to establish continuous exchange opportunities through joint seminars and other activities.

Autonomous driving technology requires verification by simulating various road and traffic environments similar to real situations and enhancing safety through real road demonstrations.

Accordingly, in 2018, reflecting domestic road traffic environments such as urban areas, dedicated roads, community areas, suburban areas, and parking environments, the Korea Transportation Safety Authority completed and opened free of charge a 360,000㎡ autonomous driving experimental city (K-City) at the Automobile Safety Research Institute in Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do.

Since 2021, it has participated in a large-scale national R&D autonomous driving technology development innovation project, virtualizing K-City (Digital twin) and supporting verification of autonomous driving under various conditions and environments based on this.

Recently, the U.S. M-City has established a cloud-based virtual testing environment linked with surrounding real roads and provides functions (M-City 2.0) that can be efficiently utilized for autonomous driving technology development through a data center.

Kwon Yong-bok, Chairman of the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, said, “To reflect various real road environments and efficiently utilize limited computing resources necessary for technology development, it is essential to secure verification and demonstration technologies through a cloud-based virtual testing environment. We will strive to continuously enhance the functions and usability of K-City so that it can be developed into a world-class autonomous driving technology development and safety verification platform.”