South Korea: SKT ‘K‑UAM Grand Challenge’ Consortium Sign MOU With South Gyeongsang Province

SK Tele­com along with its ‘K‑UAM Grand Chal­lenge’ con­sor­tia mem­bers, Joby Avi­a­tion, Korea Air­ports Cor­po­ra­tion, Han­wha Sys­tems and T‑Map Mobil­i­ty, signed a recent Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with South Gyeongsang Province, to pro­mote Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) in the south­ern coastal region of Korea, reports thefastmode.com. (Please read arti­cle below explain­ing Kore­a’s UAM Grand Chal­lenge).

The south­ern coast (Namhaean) is one of the most pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions in Korea. The region includes 876 islands and 27 beach­es. The col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to cre­ate “a high val­ue-added tourism indus­try” by com­bin­ing “the beau­ti­ful nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and future air mobil­i­ty ser­vice,” to trans­form the region into a more attrac­tive glob­al tourist des­ti­na­tion.

Under the MOU, SKT will oper­ate an UAM ser­vice based on AI tech­nolo­gies, build aer­i­al net­works and intro­duce Joby Avi­a­tion eVTOL Air­craft. Korea Air­ports Corp is to con­struct the ver­ti­ports and pro­vide UAM traf­fic man­age­ment ser­vice. Han­wha Sys­tems will man­age the devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing, sales and MRO of the eVTOLs, while pro­vid­ing traf­fic man­age­ment solu­tions. And T‑Map Mobil­i­ty is to build and oper­ate a Mobil­i­ty-as-a-Ser­vice plat­form that can con­nect UAM and ground trans­porta­tion. South Gyeongsang Province will offer sites and infra­struc­ture for these oper­a­tions as well as pro­vide admin­is­tra­tive sup­port.

This part­ner­ship along with two pre­vi­ous MOUs signed with Jeju Spe­cial Self-Gov­ern­ing Province (last Sep­tem­ber) and Daegu Met­ro­pol­i­tan City (last Octo­ber) is expect­ed to accel­er­ate progress towards achiev­ing the Kore­an Government’s goal of com­mer­cial­is­ing an UAM ser­vice by 2025.

Ryu Young-sang, CEO of SKT, com­ment­ed, “Fol­low­ing our part­ner­ship with Jeju and Daegu, we are excit­ed to join hands with South Gyeongsang Province and look for­ward to dri­ving UAM-pow­ered inno­va­tions in this region.” He con­tin­ued, “With our strong Con­sor­tia part­ners, we will swift­ly move towards intro­duc­ing a safe and con­ve­nient UAM ser­vice in Korea.”

Ryu Young-sang

Back­ground

The SKT Con­sor­tium Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with Jeju Spe­cial Self-Gov­ern­ing Province aims to launch South Korea’s first com­mer­cial UAM ser­vice on Jeju Island, Korea’s largest and most devel­oped resort island, in 2025. The plans include build­ing both ver­ti­ports and a traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tem to fly trav­ellers between Jeju Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and major tourist des­ti­na­tions on the island.

The MOU with Daegu Met­ro­pol­i­tan City is to pro­mote UAM with­in a lead­ing Kore­an city. Col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts are being made to devel­op ser­vices and the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture in the urban areas of Daegu and then lat­er expand the ser­vice to the Daegu-Gyeong­buk region cen­tred on a new air­port being con­struct­ed.

For more infor­ma­tion

http://en.kuam-gc.kr

(News Source: https://www.thefastmode.com)