Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride is Way into Processing Autonomous Driving
Most mobile users will be aware of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips, located in several mobile handsets from different companies. However, what most users may not know is that Qualcomm has been busy leveraging the name Snapdragon to use in a complete autonomous processing stack. Snapdragon Ride is a comprehensive platform that Qualcomm intends to promote as a simple yet powerful solution for autonomous vehicle manufacturers.
A Complete System
The Snapdragon Ride platform consists of three separate entities. The first is the Snapdragon Ride Safety system-on-a-chip, which will incorporate all safety monitoring measures for the vehicle on a single processor. The Snapdragon Ride Safety Accelerator and Snapdragon Ride Autonomous Stack rounds out the elements that make up the system overall. These three systems are air-cooled as opposed to water-cooled – a boon to car manufacturers who prefer having lower-powered systems for driving control since it allows them to extend the range of the vehicle with the extra battery power.
A Safe, Secure, and Extensible Framework
The safety systems incorporated with the Ride platform are useful for automakers. Things like street sign recognition and automatic emergency braking form a core part of an autonomous vehicle. In the future, Snapdragon expects that they will be able to incorporate technology like self-parking or automated highway driving. The aim is to offer a processing stack for use with Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous vehicles.
While most vehicle manufacturers today have Level 2 systems, Qualcomm understands that this is the building point that all autonomous vehicles will start. As cars develop and become more self-sufficient, the Ride platform is designed to evolve with them. Qualcomm intends to offer Snapdragon Ride commercially within the first half of 2020. Future development of the system will include updates such as energy-efficient AI systems and computer vision engines that will help vehicles with their navigation of roads and communication with nearby devices.
