Korea to operate UAM service in Seoul skies by 2025
GOHEUNG, South Jeolla Province — The government plans to launch an urban aerial mobility (UAM) service over Seoul and its surrounding areas by 2025, which will be a major turning point for the country’s future public transportation if materialized, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Sunday.
Testing the technology over an open-air countryside field in the southern coastal county of Goheung, South Jeolla Province, the government is now overseeing a competition among seven consortiums of state-run and local private companies. Depending on the results of the test, called the Grand Challenge (GC), it will be decided which companies will take the lead in introducing the country’s first UAM service.
To allow people to take electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft within or in between cities or major public venues up to 50 kilometers apart in less than 20 minutes, the ministry, by hosting the GC, is testing the technology’s safety, and UAM operation’s seamlessness and feasibility for vertiport in urban areas. Consortiums that pass the test in Goheung take a next-level test by providing a demonstration service
in the capital region, where building structures, digital networks, 26 million people and other means of public transit present a much more complicated environment than the testing site in Goheung.
Starting in 2025, the demonstration service lifting riders to desired locations will continue until 2027, during
which the government seeks to expand the service beyond the capital region and introduce the service for different purposes other than transportation, such as logistics, tourism and medical emergency depending on location.
By 2030, the government aims to popularize the technology throughout the country. Having completed a UAM ecology of manufacturing, infrastructure and service platforms by then, the ministry expects the UAM market will grow to $600 billion by 2040.
“There aren’t standardized references for the now-burgeoning UAM technologies yet,” Choi Seung-wook, director of the ministry’s urban air mobility policy division, said on Thursday. “For now, we plan to either pass or fail each consortium during the GC and technologies of those that pass the challenge will be open for future application.”
Thirty-five companies make up the consortiums that challenge three key areas for testing UAMs at the GC: plane, traffic management and vertiport. With 11 companies challenging a single area for the test, the GC, hosted by the ministry and organized by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), has been joined by 46 firms overall. They are to be tested for how well they control their planes in either normal or emergency situations, as well as the safety and noise level of their UAM aircraft.
On Wednesday, OPPAV, a 650 kilogram pilotless eVTOL used by a consortium of Korean Air and Incheon International Airport Corp. with a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour, took three laps over the testing field in Goheung in a development test (DT), covering 12 kilometers in total at altitudes between 60 meters and 100 meters. A third of the plane’s weight comes from its battery.
Created by KARI, OPPAV is not for commercialization and only serves for testing purposes. But its safety and noise level are being tested under the ministry’s strictest standards.
“UAM is basically safer than helicopters because electricity for its eight or so rotors is fed by multiple power sources, not one, securing redundancy for safety,” Choi said. “UAM technologies are up to private companies for further development, while the government will lay down infrastructure like vertiports and revise relevant laws to pave the way for the firms.”
K-UAM Dream Team, another consortium led by SK Telecom focusing on the vehicles, Hanwha Systems on traffic control and Korea Airports Corp. on vertiports, anticipates it will beat other consortiums in the GC, thanks to its plane provided by Joby Aviation, a U.S. eVTOL developer. Joby has earned safety certification for its planes faster than any other firm in the industry, according to an official from Hyundai Motor Company that is part of another consortium alongside KT, a Korean telecommunication giant.
“At the GC, consortiums are required to go through testing in an order, not simultaneously, so it’ll take some time to find out which consortiums will pass the challenge,”said Kim Jeong-il, head of SK Telecom’s global solution UAM business office. “As to how many eVTOLs we will manufacture, we’ll first calibrate how much demand there will be and how lucrative it will be.”