Hyundai Autoever, Avikus jointly develop self-sailing ship solution

South Korea’s Hyundai Autoever and Avicus, the self-navigation vessel affiliate of HD Hyundai, on Tuesday said they signed a development contract to apply a next-generation self-navigation platform to ships.

Avicus will apply to NeuBoat, its self-navigation solution for leisure boats, to  Hyundai Autoever's vehicle software platform Mobilegene. The two companies are developing technology and confirming quality under the goal of commercializing a self-driving ship platform by 2025.

Through this partnership, both sides have targeted the North American leisure boat market. The US alone accounts for over half of the annual global demand of two million such vessels.

By 2030, the two companies will apply self-navigation solutions to more than 400,000 boats per year.

The business research company Acute Market Reports said the global self-navigation vessel market is expected to grow from $6.8 billion last year to $9.4 billion in 2027.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com