Having recently earmarked $132m to develop and commercialise home grown autonomous technology for ships, the South Korean government is now handing out cash for its ports to lead the world towards unmanned operations.
Busan, the nation’s top port, will lead a government project involving eight other port authorities, to develop core technologies and commercialise an unmanned smart port logistics system.
The $12m project, backed by the Ministry of Science among others, will look to harness artificial intelligence, big data, Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain to increase efficiency and security. Locally developed sensors for autonomous port vehicles and technologies for remotely controlling equipment will be included in the project.
Last month, Seoul launched an integrated government task force to develop and commercialise relevant autonomous shipboard technologies.
