South Korea has taken the first step towards operating remote-controlled autonomous vehicles on real roads.
The country has completed work on a "K-City", an unpopulated town in the central western city of Hwaseong, where self-driving vehicles can be fully tested.
The city completed after 18 months of construction covers an area of about 320,000 square meters.
The K-city is known to be the world's first autonomous vehicle testing arena based on next-generation 5G mobile networks.
[Kwon Byung-Yoon, director, Korea Transportation Safety Authority]
"We plan to upgrade the K-city by investing an additional 31 billion won in communications facilities to secure safety in blind spots."
The 5G networks enable companies, universities and research institutes to test a wide variety of autonomous connected cars in different environments.
The government plans to establish an industrial complex on a 230,000-square-meter site near the K-city by 2021, which will contribute to further boosting the autonomous vehicle sector and preparing for the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution.
[저작권자(c) YTN 무단전재, 재배포 및 AI 데이터 활용 금지]