Hyundai Motor Company’s first trailer-truck platooning trial has been successfully conducted on the Yeoju Smart Highway. The trial used two trailer-connected Xcient trucks to successfully demonstrate vehicle platooning, cut-in/out by other vehicles, simultaneous emergency braking, and V2V communication technology. The speed limit was set at 60km/h to ensure safety.
Yeoju Smart Highway is a 7.7km testbed within the central region expressway established by the Korean government for the development of autonomous driving technology. The highway is constantly populated by vehicles for autonomous driving research, meaning that the trial was conducted in replicated real-world traffic conditions, according to Hyundai.
“We are confident that our industry leading autonomous driving technology in commercial vehicles showcased in this platooning truck demonstration will lead into a revolutionary paradigm shift in the freight and logistics industry,” said Jihan Ryu, head of Hyundai Motor’s Commercial Vehicle Electronics Control Engineering Group.
“We will strive to create constructive synergy by sharing our knowhow and experiences of developing autonomous driving technology between commercial vehicle and passenger vehicle sectors to expedite Level 5 autonomous driving technology.”
This demonstration is part of a project initiated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT). Since 2018, MOLIT has been working to support pioneering efforts for autonomous technology. Along with Hyundai Motor Company, this national project involved government, corporations and academia.
The V2V system applied to both trucks in this demonstration showcased how real-time information sharing between platooning vehicles can improve control over acceleration and deceleration, and also incorporate ADAS information from various sensors like cameras and radar.
Furthermore, the Real-time Frontal Video Sharing feature was enabled by V2V technology. By displaying videos from the leading vehicle, the following driver can see the road ahead, solving limitations of forward vision for trailing drivers.
Hyundai Motor says it will strive to achieve high-level platooning technology that will work with an even tighter following distance between vehicles than the 16.7m used in this trial, and also implement traffic information for optimized travel in the future.
In August 2018, Hyundai Motor, in partnership with Hyundai Glovis, completed South Korea’s first domestic highway journey with a Level 3 autonomously navigated truck for approximately 40km on the highway between Uiwang and Incheon.