Qualcomm Launches World’s First 5G and AI Drone Platform

A new solution for autonomous drones

Qual­comm has unveiled the world’s first drone plat­form and ref­er­ence design that will use both 5G and AI tech­nolo­gies. The chip­mak­er’s Flight RB5 5G plat­form com­bines mul­ti­ple sophis­ti­cat­ed tech­nolo­gies into one tight­ly inte­grat­ed drone sys­tem to sup­port a vari­ety of use cas­es includ­ing cin­e­ma and enter­tain­ment, secu­ri­ty and emer­gency response, deliv­ery, pro­tec­tion, inspec­tion and map­ping.

The new solu­tion is pur­pose-built for autonomous drones, and Qual­comm is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing devel­op­ers with an easy-to-use plat­form for build­ing pre­mi­um drones right out of the box.

Peculiarities

Key fea­tures of the plat­form:

• Con­nec­tiv­i­ty options: Cel­lu­lar (LTE/5G/CBRS) and Wi-Fi 6 for ubiq­ui­tous and long-dis­tance con­nec­tiv­i­ty
• Qual­comm QRB5165 Pre­mi­um Robot­ics Inte­grat­ed Proces­sor
• High-Per­for­mance Het­ero­ge­neous Com­put­ing at Ultra-Low Pow­er Con­sump­tion
• 5th Gen Qual­comm® Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) Proces­sor (15 TOPS) for com­plex AI and deep learn­ing work­loads and autonomous flight
• Ded­i­cat­ed 8 TOPS Qual­comm® Hexa­gon™ Ten­sor Accel­er­a­tor (HTA) for accu­rate field-of-view detec­tion
• Ded­i­cat­ed advanced visu­al analy­sis hard­ware enables com­put­er vision appli­ca­tions such as (EVA), VIO, SLAM, Stereo Depth Map­ping
• Qual­comm® Spec­tra 480 CV-ISP with 2‑gigapixel/sec ISPs and 8K video, 4K HDR, 200MP stills and 7‑camera imag­ing enable ful­ly autonomous robots
• From cryp­tog­ra­phy to DRM, a secure proces­sor for strong pro­tec­tion keeps drones safe at all lev­els.
• Auton­o­my: visu­al iner­tial odom­e­try (VIO), path plan­ning, PX4, nav­i­ga­tion with­out GPS, BVLOS, fol­low me
• 360-degree visu­al­iza­tion and obsta­cle avoid­ance: depth esti­ma­tion, obsta­cle detec­tion, map­ping and VOA
• Per­cep­tion Capa­bil­i­ties: 8K30 and 4K120 cam­eras, EIS, dig­i­tal zoom, hori­zon lev­el­ing, mul­ti-cam­era oper­a­tion (up to 7 cam­eras)

Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Platform

The Flight RB5 5G plat­form is pow­ered by Qual­com­m’s QRB5165 proces­sor and builds on the com­pa­ny’s lat­est AI and Inter­net of Things (IoT) offer­ings, deliv­er­ing high per­for­mance and het­ero­ge­neous com­put­ing at ultra-low pow­er con­sump­tion of up to 15 TOPS.

Along with advanced main cam­era capa­bil­i­ties that can trans­mit 8K/4K HDR video, 200MP pho­tos, and the abil­i­ty to work with mul­ti­ple cam­eras in par­al­lel (up to 7 cam­eras; to ensure accu­rate per­cep­tion of the sur­round­ing world and cap­ture high­ly detailed images), the plat­form sup­ports 5G and Wi-Fi con­nec­tiv­i­ty. ‑Fi 6 with low laten­cy over long dis­tances for improved safe­ty beyond line-of-sight (BVLOS).

Dev Singh, Senior Direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Autonomous Robot­ics, Drones and Intel­li­gent Machines at Qual­comm Tech­nolo­gies explains:

“As a glob­al leader in dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, Qual­comm Tech­nolo­gies is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing intel­li­gent on-device and pre­mi­um drone solu­tions that will dri­ve inno­va­tion across indus­tries by help­ing devel­op small­er, lighter and safer drones.”

Price and availability

Cal­i­for­nia-based ModalAI, which left Qual­comm in 2018, will act as the man­u­fac­tur­er and dis­trib­u­tor of the new solu­tion, which costs $3999.99 (with­out 5G modem) and $4499.99 (with 5G modem). The com­pa­ny is already accept­ing pre-orders for the Qual­comm Flight RB5 5G plat­form, with the first devel­op­ment kit expect­ed to ship in Q4 2021.

Mean­while, Qual­comm is work­ing with Ver­i­zon to com­plete net­work test­ing of its lat­est drone solu­tion. Sum­ming up Chad Sweet, CEO of ModalAI: “Autonomous 5G flight is here — which will para­mount to increase the flight range of drones and add val­ue to a wide range of inspec­tion capa­bil­i­ties. Bet­ter yet, the plat­form is open to every­one. Togeth­er, ModalAI and Qual­comm Tech­nolo­gies are dri­ving the adop­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of drone tech­nol­o­gy.”