Mars Auto, a startup developing autonomous driving technology for heavy trucks, will launch Korea's first paid autonomous trailer transport service.
Park Il-soo, CEO of Mars Auto, and Noh Je-kyung, vice president of Mars Auto, announced this at a press conference held Monday at Dreeum in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Mars Auto recently secured a mobility demonstration special exemption from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and passed an evaluation by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority, and plans to begin autonomous trailer transport in the third quarter. The company has secured three clients so far, and the service will operate on routes to and from Busan Port. The autonomous vehicle is the Hyundai Motor Xcient.
Mars Auto also unveiled Copilot, a Level 2 autonomous driving service for heavy truck drivers. Copilot is a subscription-based autonomous driving service that supports long-distance driving centered on highways and arterial roads. Copilot reduces fatigue for long-distance truck drivers who operate up to 11 hours a day and improves fuel efficiency through AI-optimized driving. Mars Auto said it has verified fuel cost savings of more than 10% through pilot operations of Copilot with domestic and overseas partners.
In addition, Mars Auto on the same day unveiled "Marsnet 3," an end-to-end (E2E) artificial intelligence (AI) model for heavy truck autonomous driving that extends the driving range to general roads. Marsnet 3 is a technology that can drive highways, which account for 98% of long-distance freight transport sections, and the remaining 2% of general road sections using a camera-centered system without high-definition maps.
"The true autonomous driving that Mars Auto aims for goes beyond the existing method, which costs hundreds of millions of won per vehicle, to create an economical and safe freight transport ecosystem with E2E AI technology that can be practically scaled at logistics sites," Park said.
