Currently, South Korea's law regulates autonomous vehicles to have a human operator present so that they can prevent unexpected situations such as road accidents and machine malfunctions. The pre-commercialization test of street cleaning vehicles took place inside a regulation-free zone in Gwangju some 270 kilometers (167 miles) south of Seoul.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said in a statement on February 17 that the demonstration of special-purpose vehicles would focus on checking the efficacy of unmanned vehicles and collecting public data.
Four kinds of low-speed vehicles that travel slower than five kilometers per hour -- street sweeper, industrial garbage collector, garbage collector, and public information collector -- will be operated through a control tower system.
"Through the demonstration, we will establish a foundation for Gwangju to become a leading city in South Korea's future automobile industry," Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-seop was quoted as saying. Gwangju said that road workers including cleaners are prone to accidents as they work in low-light environments after sunset and just before sunrise.