[From the Scene] Hyundai Motor offers sneak peek at software-driven manufacturing

UIWANG, Gyeonggi Province – Hyundai Motor Group on Monday unveiled its 200 key automotive solutions powered by artificial intelligence, big data and robotics, aimed at transforming the carmaker’s auto manufacturing plants from hardware-centered facilities to software-driven smart factories.

“Like software-defined vehicles, which add functions and services through software updates, (auto) manufacturing bases can turn into agile and intelligent smart factories with data-based operation and decision-making processes,” said Lee Jae-min, head of the E-FOREST center at Hyundai Motor Group, during a press conference held at the company’s Uiwang research center. “E-FOREST” is Hyundai Motor and Kia’s smart factory brand.

Hyundai Motor Group’s so-called “software-defined factory” consists of four operating structures – the real factory, the controlling architecture that controls the factory’s hardware, data platforms collecting massive data on production facilities and applications, which offer solutions using artificial intelligence tools or business intelligence, enhancing the production efficiency and safety of the plant.

This smart factory system will be driven by five solutions: virtual engineering, digital twin, prognostics and health management, factory business intelligence and factory artificial intelligence. In particular, digital twins can run simulations before setting up equipment or facilities, which reduces the timeline for production preparation by 40 percent. The prognostics solution can detect the defect of facilities, diagnose the cause and anticipate possible malfunctions.

“After adopting the software-defined factory solutions to the newly-built manufacturing plants, such as the electric vehicle plant in Ulsan, we plan to expand them to other production facilities. The goal is to reduce one-third of the manufacturing cost,” said Lee. “Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (the company’s key tech hub) could play a role as a test bed for these technologies.”

Lee stressed that cutting-edge technologies would improve vehicle performance and tap into diversified customer needs, as well as enhance production efficiency and cut investment costs in facilities.

During a press tour of the exhibition booths located within the three buildings in the research center, Hyundai Motor Group introduced a glimpse of what a future auto plant would look like. One of the eye-catching demonstrations showed the carmaker’s four-legged collaborative robot Spot easily going over a bump and moving along a stage in response to remote control commands.

Spot can detect fires or potential hazards in the facilities and even sends an alert to security staff when it finds a worker lying on the ground due to a health issue. Once it oversees car inspection processes, it could reduce the defect rate close to zero, according to a Hyundai Motor Group official.

The carmaker is also working to deploy the robot to toxic or hazardous working environments at the factories run by Korea Electric Power Corp, Hyundai Steel and LG Energy Solution. It can also help farms during harvesting which are suffering from a decline in rural population.

Hyundai Motor’s logistics robots, called Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), which are used to carry heavy loads within the plant, will be operated by the carmaker’s own control and monitoring software system. Previously, it had to set up separate control systems for all auto plants using these robots, costing additional investments.

With upgrades, the robots can load and unload faster at docks using LiDAR sensors and speed up to 1.5 meters per second. The robots will be deployed at all of the Hyundai Motor and Kia plants from April 2026. Currently, only two production bases -- Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore and Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama in the US -- use them.

The carmaker also showcased Advanced Air Mobility technologies including a body and wing automatic alignment system. Given the extreme precision required for UAM assembly — up to 10 to 100 times greater than vehicles — this system automatically aligns and assembles UAM bodies and wings down to 1 micrometer, reducing a process that typically takes 3 to 5 days to just a few hours.

From Tuesday to Thursday, Hyundai Motor Group will hold its fifth “E-FOREST Tech Day” exhibition at the company’s Uiwang research center and invite tech startups and the group’s partner firms.