KT (030200.KS) is teaming up with Hyundai Motor to develop a school van safety system that uses artificial intelligence and high-precision positioning technology to track children from pickup and drop-off through to whether any remain inside the vehicle.
KT said on the 2nd that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Hyundai Motor, specialty mobility firm MTR and smart notification platform operator KidsNote to develop a dedicated safe pickup and drop-off solution for children's school vans. The goal is to prevent accidents caused by children being left behind or unattended in school vans, and to digitize school van operations overall.
KT will provide its telecommunications and cloud platform along with a high-precision positioning service based on RTX Fast, developed in collaboration with Trimble. RTX Fast uses satellite signal correction technology to deliver location data accurate to the level of individual traffic lanes. Hyundai Motor will supply vehicle data, while MTR will handle the development and production of Staria EV-based school vans and the installation of in-vehicle safety devices. KidsNote will provide a parent-facing application and notification services.
The four companies will link vehicle data with school transport operation services to build a system that manages the entire process from boarding to travel to drop-off. They plan to apply AI, ultra-wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technologies to enable functions including detection of children remaining in vehicles, real-time location sharing, automatic confirmation of boarding and disembarking with alerts to guardians, in-vehicle safety monitoring and automated trip logging.
The partners will also develop a function that analyzes boarding, drop-off and travel data to detect emergencies. The aim is to turn school vans from a simple means of transport into a moving childcare platform that manages the full course of a child's journey. The companies plan to expand the scope of the technology to private academy vehicles, welfare transport vehicles and vehicles supporting the mobility-impaired.
"Based on KT's telecommunications and AX capabilities and our RTX Fast high-precision positioning technology, we will successfully implement this school van service and expand the use of precision positioning into a range of mobility and industrial fields," said Noh Hyung-rae, managing director and head of the corporate business division at KT Enterprise.
