First Self-driving in City Road

South Korea’s first autonomous car SNUver has successfully completed a test drive on actual roads in Yeouido, Seoul, on June 22.
South Korea’s first autonomous car SNUver has successfully completed a test drive on actual roads in Yeouido, Seoul, on June 22.

 

SNUver, South Korea’s first autonomous car developed by Seoul National University’s Intelligent Vehicle IT Research Center, holds its first test drive on the roads in Yeouido, Seoul, on June 22

Seoul National University’s Intelligent Vehicle IT Research Center announced that its self-developed autonomous vehicle “SNUver” successfully completed a test drive on actual roads in Yeouido, Seoul, on June 22.

It was the first autonomous driving test on actual roads after the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) approved the driverless test drive on most public roads around the country in November last year.

SNUver has improved performance by test running more than 20,000 kilometers at the Seoul National University’s Gwanak Campus with no accidents for almost two years after it was first developed in November 2015. It also showed perfect driving skills on the actual 5 km-section road which can have unexpected situations. The roads at the Seoul National University’s Seoul Campus have up to two lanes with less uncertainties than actual roads, but the roads at Yeouido in front of the National Assembly building has four lanes with numerous variables including cutting in. There were two passengers aboard SNUver but they only kept eyes forward not touching the wheel.

The research center led by Professor of Electrical Engineering Seo Seung-woo had been able to test SNUver only at the Seoul National University’s Gwanak Campus after the development in 2015 due to statutory regulations. SNUver, which has currently advanced to its third generation version, has improved in recognition and navigation capabilities compared to the second model unveiled last November. It also has better capabilities in recognition and reasoning for vehicles, pedestrians, lanes, traffic lights and signs which are prerequisites for autonomous driving on streets crowded with other cars, people and buildings. In particular, the center added a high-precision 3D map, moving subject detection and tracing technology and collision risk avoidance technology in order to make  the self-driving car stably run on busy urban roads as well as roads between skyscrapers and tunnels in where there can be positioning errors due to unstable GPS signals.

The team led by Professor Seo will continue test drives of SNUver in Yeouido until the end of this year, stabilizing driving performance. In addition, it examine whether existing infrastructure and regulations are compatible with automated driving based on collected data.

 

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