Vice President Jongseon Ahn, head of Heavy BG (left) and LG Uplus 5G Project Center Vice-President Jusik Choi pose together after signing the MOU for cooperation in the smart construction business, including the development of 5G-based, unmanned, self-operating construction machines.

Doosan Infracore, jointly with LG Uplus Corp., is set to develop unmanned self-operating construction machines using 5G communication technology.

DI announced on May 29 that it has signed an MOU with LG Uplus for cooperation on the development of a smart construction technology.

The two companies aim to develop an unmanned self-operating technology even for construction machines as with automobiles. It is the first time that a construction machine manufacturer and a telecommunication company have teamed up to develop an unmanned self-operating technology in South Korea.

The two companies plan to complete the development and verification of the construction machine remote-control technology by the end of this year, based on the ultra-low latency, high speed and large capacity of 5G technology. If the project is successful, the new technology will enable operators to monitor construction machinery via a screen at a control center situated several hundred kilometers away, just as one operates a machine from a cockpit.

The two companies will extend their collaboration to overall smart construction technology in order to carry out 3D surveying using drones, automate workload calculation and construction planning, and enable co-work between construction machines in order to realize unmanned, self-operation at construction sites.

Vice President Jongseon Ahn, head of Heavy BG said: “With this MOU, we will speed up the exploration of new business areas using information and communication technology. We will also link sophisticated communication technology to our existing smart construction technology in an attempt to secure a competitive advantage in the global construction machine market.”

LG Uplus 5G Project Center Vice-President Jusik Choi said: “5G has the capability to perform functions that were impossible in the LTE era. In cooperation with DI, we will bring about a paradigm shift in the construction machinery industry and lead the 5G B2B service market.”

In an entirely separate development, in December of last year DI signed a technology agreement with Bosch, the global German leader in automotive and heavy equipment parts, for the joint development of recognition and control solutions aimed at realizing unmanned construction machine operation and automation technologies.