President Park Geun-hye presided over the 2nd Science Technology Strategy Meeting on Aug. 10 and designated nine state strategy projects designed to secure new growth momentum and enhance the quality of the public. The nine state strategy projects, to be implemented through the intensive state investments and collaboration between the public and private sectors involve self-driving cars; post-steel, lighter materials; smart cities; artificial intelligence (AI); virtual reality & augmented reality; precision medicine; carbon dioxide capture and utilization technology; super fine dust; and bio-medicine.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE), a ministry in charge of self-driving cars and post-steel, lightweight materials, decided to provide intensive support to reinvigorate the nation’s mainstay industries and create new markets of the future.
The paradigm of the automobile industry is shifting from internal combustion cars to self-driving electric vehicles, so autonomous cars is an area that needs maximum state resources and capabilities to seize the future car market ahead of others, said Kim Hong-joo, director in charge of industry technology development at the MOTIE.
Self-driving cars are forecast to take up a 75 percent share of the global new car market in 2035 and to have great ripple effects in related industries, including semiconductors and ICT, he added.
The MOTIE said it will collaborate with such ministries as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) to implement a national strategy project to nurture self-driving cars to catch up with changes and trends and rise to a global leader by making the most of the nation’s strengths—automobiles, ICT and semiconductor technologies.
Initially, the ministry plans to upgrade added values by intensively supporting the localization of such core parts as sensors, for which Korea depends on foreign imports, and system semiconductors. Eight core parts, including context-awareness cameras and radar/lidar systems, will be developed by 2019, the ministry said.
Korea will secure such system semiconductor systems for vehicles with massive growth potential as image processing and communications by 2021 by making the most of the nation’s superior semiconductor technologies.
The ministry will provide support to secure six convergence technologies to enhance the recognition of artificial intelligence platforms, a testing system using VR/AR, EV-based self-driving platforms and traffic flow optimization, and communications security by making the most of the nation’s world-class ICT technologies.
The ministry is out to expand multidisciplinary convergence alliances between automobile and ICT sectors, which are now lacking, through state strategy project R&D activities. Common platforms for self-driving cars designed with standard interface will be developed by 2021 to allow any ICT company to use them.
Diverse service models, including unmanned shuttles and traffic controls, will be explored to create new markets deriving from self-driving cars. The MOTIE plans to offer a helping hand to new service model developers so that they can verify and commercialize the new services at so-called “regulation-free” zones.
Post-Steel, Lightweight Materials
The competitiveness of future mainstay industries, including automobiles, aircraft and robots, will depend on lightweight materials to raise energy efficiency. “Solar Impulse 2,” the first-round-the-world solar flight in July, was made possible thanks to the use of carbon fiber, which led to an aircraft with a dramatically lower weight.
The value of the global lightening material market is predicted to surge from 175 trillion won in 2015 to 475 trillion won in 2023 due to a rise in EV and aircraft bodies and parts demand.
The ministry plans to strengthen R&D support over seven years after designating titanium, magnesium, aluminum and carbon fiber as four lightening materials state strategy projects. Korea’s lightening materials technology stands at about 70 percent of advanced countries’ technology levels, but the ministry believes Korea could have an enough potential since some state-invested research institutes and universities secure some proprietary technologies, and Korea owns world-class production technology and facility operation knowhow.
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