Qualcomm Advances Development of Smarter, Safer Autonomous Robots for Logistics, Industry 4.0, Urban Aerial Mobility

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As 5G proliferates beyond the smartphone, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. has acted as a catalyst in enabling 5G to scale and revolutionize the robotics industry. At the annual Qualcomm 5G Summit event, the Company is unveiling an expanded roadmap of cutting-edge 5G and edge-AI robotics solutions with the introduction of the Qualcomm Robotics RB6 Platform and the Qualcomm RB5 AMR Reference Design. Qualcomm Technologies latest advanced edge-AI and robotics solutions will support the creation of more productive, autonomous, and advanced robots. The solutions will help unlock new commercial realities including AMRs, delivery robots, highly automated manufacturing robots, collaborative robots, UAM aircrafts, industrial drone infrastructure, autonomous defense solutions, and beyond.    

Bringing together Qualcomm Technologies enhanced Qualcomm AI Engine and 5G capabilities will unleash cutting-edge applications and possibilities including the following examples to create smarter and safer robots and environments:

• Enhanced autonomy for delivery robots roaming the streets.
• Seamless fleet management coordination across AMRs in industrial spaces.
• Real-time data and insights that empower critical decision-making across manufacturing and logistics.
• Next-generation intelligence to support safe and autonomous urban air mobility transportation.

The Qualcomm Robotics RB6 Platform and the Qualcomm RB5 AMR Reference Design will support evolving applications for OEMs and robot manufacturers looking to integrate ground robots in industrial use cases across sectors including government service applications, logistics, healthcare, retail, warehousing, agriculture, construction, utilities, and more. The new solutions will accelerate the digital transformation of industries and serve as a key enabler for Industry 4.0.

"Building on the successful growth and traction of Qualcomm Technologies' leading robotics solutions, our expanded roadmap of solutions will help bring enhanced AI and 5G technologies to support smarter, safer, and more advanced innovations across robotics, drones and intelligent machines," said Dev Singh, Senior Director of Business Development and Head of Autonomous Robotics, Drones and Intelligent Machines at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "We are fueling robotics innovations with 5G connectivity and premium edge-AI that will transform how we think and approach challenges and ever-evolving industry expectations in the digital economy."

Unleashing 5G Robotics Innovation with Expanded Premium Features

Built on the foundation of the Company’s leading robotics platforms, the Qualcomm Robotics RB6 platform sits at the premium tier of Qualcomm Technologies’ robotics solutions, delivering expanded capabilities that take enterprise and industrial robotics innovation to the next level with enhanced AI and 5G. The new solution delivers state-of-the-art 5G connectivity with support for global sub-6GHz and mmWave bands in mainstream, enterprise, and private networks. Qualcomm® robotics platforms have flexible architecture with expansion cards to support evolving connectivity features allowing Qualcomm Robotics RB6 platform to deliver support for 3GPP Release 15, and Releases 16, 17 and 18 features as cards become available in the future. The elevated platform brings best-in-class, premium, edge AI and video processing capabilities through the enhanced Qualcomm AI Engine, with support for 70 – 200 Trillion-Operations-Per-Second (TOPS) (INT8).

The Qualcomm RB5 AMR Reference design is the world’s first AMR reference design to offer tightly integrated enhanced AI and 5G-capabilities. This new solution helps accelerate development for commercial, enterprise, and industrial robots, unleashing innovative possibilities for industries looking to adopt robotics solutions and realize the benefits of the solutions at the connected intelligent edge.

Empowering Developers with Ease   

The Qualcomm Robotics RB6 platform is comprised of an extensive set of hardware and software development tools that are comprehensive, customizable, and easy-to-use. Developers have flexible software capabilities with a fully integrated, premium AI Software Development Kit (SDK), the Qualcomm Intelligent Multimedia SDK. This SDK brings together multimedia, AI and ML, computer vision (CV), and networking building blocks to support end to end deployment of robotic applications.   

Global Traction and Ecosystem Validation

Qualcomm Technologies continues to collaborate with leading robotics, drones, and intelligent machines ecosystem leaders to drive innovation for premium 5G, and edge-AI enabled solutions including the likes of ADLINK, Akasha Imaging (an Alphabet company), Cyngn, ForwardX, FutureMind, Hyundai Motor Company, inVia Robotics, LG Electronics, Microsoft Azure private multi-access edge compute (MEC), ModalAI, Naver Labs, Pudu Robotics, Samsung Electronics, Teraki, Teledyne Flir, Thundercomm, and more.

“We are pleased to support new devices being developed on the Qualcomm Robotics RB6 platform to simplify enterprise 5G driven modernization, extending our joint vision of chip-to-cloud collaboration that brings together Microsoft Azure private MEC with Qualcomm Private Network RAN Automation and Qualcomm Robotics RB6 platform,” said Shriraj Gaglani, general manager for Azure for Operators, Microsoft.

To enable the next generation of robotics solutions and designs, Qualcomm Technologies is continuing to collaborate with TDK to further enhance the capabilities of the Qualcomm Robotics roadmap of cutting-edge solutions. TDK has added their enhanced sensor technologies for premium robotics applications as part of Qualcomm Technologies’ latest robotics product offerings.