According to Korea’s JoongAng Daily News, the Hyundai Motor, Hyundai Engineering & Construction and KT Corps Consortium announced this week they had successfully completed its first step of the K‑UAM Grand Challenge.
The event, which lasted five weeks and occurred at an aviation testing centre in Goheung, South Jeolla, trialled eVTOL aircraft operations alongside traffic management. Infrastructure, in particular a vertiport, was also tested.
Hyundai explained it had trialled its own MaaS (mobility as a service), a platform for all types of transportation from conventional vehicles to UAM, during this project’s first phase. It also collected data on factors such as weather and wind speed that could affect the operation of eVTOLs.
Hyundai and its affiliate Engineering & Construction Group are two of three participants in this particular K‑UAM consortium. The other, KT Corporation, formerly Korea Telecom, is the second largest telecommunications and wireless carrier company in the country. The initiative is divided up: Hyundai Motor (eVTOL Operations); KT Corps (Traffic Management); and Hyundai E&C (Vertiports).
KT has set up a platform which is able to process data on traffic and safety in real time, while Hyundai Engineering and Construction analyses the demonstration of a vertiport in various simulations.
There are seven Consortiums in total and 46 different companies involved in the K‑UAM Grand Challenge.
(News Source: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/)
