After the commercialization of 5G, how is the progress of KT, the Korean telecom operator, in driverless driving?

After the commercialization of 5G, great changes have taken place in all countries, and everyone has used 5G to deploy various industries. Today, it is reported that after the commercialization of 5G, KT, one of the three major telecoms in South Korea, released a 5G-based driverless car platform and accelerated the development of technologies such as vehicle networking and unmanned shuttle buses.

5G networks have low latency, high-speed connections, and are 20 times faster than 4G. They are suitable for various innovative technologies such as driverless cars, the Internet of Things (IoT), and virtual reality (VR). In particular, driverless car services require functions such as vehicle collision warnings and blind spot reminders. They require not only high-specification hardware and high-speed networks, but also powerful software to provide good 5G services.

According to Korean technology software "DDaily", KT has invested in driverless car platform research since last year and accelerated the development of driverless car platform 5G Mobility Makers. KT has mainly studied self-driving cars and networks in the past, and focused on developing V2X, a car-to-network technology between cars and networks.

V2X can identify and utilize data from different cars, and data between cars can also be exchanged. Not only can it share data, but it can also more accurately grasp the paths of other vehicles, surrounding obstacles, etc., thereby improving traffic safety. 

Unfortunately, the development of driverless cars in South Korea is still not complete. Although the sensors can already recognize surrounding information, they are limited to one-dimensional linear space. If the technology develops to two or three dimensions, it will be closer to the era of fully driverless cars. 

However, the core technology of driverless cars still depends on the cloud. Vehicles will generate huge amounts of data within 1 second, which needs to be transmitted in real time, and the latency is reduced through edge computing in the cloud. Kim Jae-yong (transliteration), the leader of the PTF for the development of KT IoT smart-X, explained that these calculations are not performed in the vehicle, but in the cloud, without the need for wireless broadcasting, background networks, or central clouds. They can be completed by using edge computing in the cloud, and latency is reduced.
Kim Jae-yong predicts that fixed-route shuttles will be the first technology to be realized in the era of driverless cars. In order to upgrade driverless cars to the 3rd to 4th stage, KT is also modifying and testing cars to speed up development.