Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride

2020: Announcement of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride platform

On January 10, 2020 the Qualcomm Technologies company submitted the Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride platform. As a part of the platform a line of the single-crystal Snapdragon Ride Safety systems, the Snapdragon Ride Safety Accelerator accelerator and a stack of the software of Snapdragon Ride Autonomous Stack.

According to the company, the Snapdragon Ride platform is designed to solve problems in the field of autonomous driving and the systems of assistance to the driver (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, ADAS). The combination of the single-crystal Snapdragon Ride SoC systems, the accelerator and an autonomous stack proposes to car makers a scalable solution for three segments of autonomous systems. These are L1/L2 levels (the ADAS systems of active security including automatic emergency brake application, recognition of road signs and function of deduction on a lane); L2 + (the systems of the increased comfort for the automated movement along the route, the independent parking and city driving in the start-stop mode) and L4/L5 (completely autonomous driving for autonomous city driving, the robotaxi and robologistics).

The line of the motor transportation single-crystal Snapdragon SoC systems with the accelerator is the cornerstone of the Snapdragon Ride platform. For its creation scalable modular multi-core processors with a high performance, the AI energy efficient systems and computer vision, graphic processors were used. The platform consisting of the different single-crystal systems and the accelerator has high thermal efficiency and can be applied in any segment of the market — from L1/L2 (30 TOPS) to L4/L5 (more than 700 TOPS at 130 W). Different constructive versions of the platform, including with passive or air cooling are possible. At the same time all also becomes simpler construction of the car and the range of a run of electric vehicles increases. The single-crystal Snapdragon Ride systems and the accelerator are developed for the systems of functional security of the ASIL-D level.

It is planned that in the first half of 2020 the Snapdragon Ride platform will be available to car makers and suppliers of the 1st level to preliminary developments. According to forecasts of Qualcomm Technologies, production of the first cars using Snapdragon Ride will begin in 2023.

We are glad to provide our Snapdragon Ride platform of first generation. It is intended for meeting requirements of the most different levels — from NCAP and L2 + to the robotaxi. Nakul Duggal, the senior vice president of Qualcomm Technologies for product management told

While for January, 2020 the company considers the most probable the following wave of innovations in a L2+ Convenience ADAS segment, hardware solutions on the Snapdragon Ride platform vary from one single-crystal system (CONSTRUCTION DEPARTMENT) for the ADAS systems of active security to high-scalable architecture with a set of CONSTRUCTION DEPARTMENT and specialized independent accelerators for completely independent systems of autonomous driving.

The line of the single-crystal ADAS systems and Qualcomm Technologies accelerators is based on the fundamental principle of use of opportunities of heterogeneous calculations according to requirements of applications. These CONSTRUCTION DEPARTMENTS and accelerators effectively process data bulks, arriving from the onboard systems, using different technologies of Qualcomm Technologies. These are the AI systems of the next generation, signal processors for video cameras, advanced digital data processors (DSP) for signal processing arriving from sensors, the high-performance CPU which are responsible for planning and decision making, the updated graphic processors providing visualization and an interactive videosreda with immersion, the specialized systems of functional and information security for CONSTRUCTION DEPARTMENT and an accelerator of autonomous driving. Using the last Qualcomm Technologies implements energy efficient calculations in cars of a mass segment.

Direct part of Snapdragon Ride is the specialized program stack of autonomous driving of Qualcomm Technologies. This building and scalable solution will help OEM car makers and suppliers of the first level to accelerate rates of the developments and innovations. The program stack simplifies tasks of gain of security and increase in comfort of everyday driving, offering the optimized applications and software for such complex cases as autonomous driving on the route with simulation of human style and also a wide choice of such modular options as perception, localization, consolidation of information of sensors and planning of behavior. Program infrastructure of Snapdragon Ride supports consolidation of components of a stack of the customer with the Snapdragon Ride Autonomous Stack components.

Snapdragon Ride includes the following:

• The checked integrated complex on ensuring transport security with reliable OS and hypervisors
• Security systems from different producers of automotive industry, including Adaptive AUTOSAR
• The optimized, comprehensive libraries of basic functions for the systems of computer vision, signal processing, standard arithmetic libraries
• Full-function program stack of functions for driving on the route, including perception and planning
• Economic solution of localization of Qualcomm Vision Enhanced Precise Positioning (VEPP)
• Program and hardware providing for testing process
• Management tools data for intellectual data collection and the automated annotation