Snapdragon Flight Drone - a platform for autonomous UAVs

Do you want to upgrade your quadrocopter with a chip from Qualcomm?

It will now be easier to develop unmanned autonomous autonomous aircraft, including those with ROS on board. Allow drones to independently coordinate their flight - Qualcomm set itself this goal. The result of the work was the Snapdragon Flight Drone platform, which the company demonstrated at CES 2017. The



technology giant Qualcomm introduced a system that will allow everyone to create autonomous drones. Aircraft with the Snapdragon Flight Drone platform will be able to recognize objects, build an obstacle map and choose the optimal route.



The demonstration of new technology took place in a closed pavilion without the use of GPS. Monocular visual odometry and mapping. The device adequately coped with the task and confirmed that it could work, relying only on its own strength.



The Snapdragon 801 processor weighs only 12 grams, but copes with the complex tasks of SLAM. An UAV can fly independently without assistance.
Snapdragon Flight platform based on the Snapdragon 801 processor with a frequency of 2.26 GHz. Snapdragon Flight will allow you to create low-cost drones with wireless control and the highest performance in the world.



Today, drones use separate components for photography, navigation and communications, supplied by various vendors. The use of discrete components ultimately leads to increased costs and increased dimensions of drones.



Qualcomm integrates leading mobile technology on a single board. Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, Adreno 330 graphics accelerator, Wi-Fi 802.11n Dual-Band 2x2 module, Bluetooth 4.0, GNSS navigation module are located on a 58x40 mm board. The platform supports Quick Charge technology, 4K video recording and dual camera operation.



Snapdragon Flight will allow you to create simple and cheap drones at a low price with the ability to record Full HD-video at 60 frames / s and the ability to computer image processing.

Specifications

System on Chip: Snapdragon 801
CPU: Quad-core 2.26 GHz Krait
DSP: Hexagon DSP (QDSP6 V5A) - 801 MHz + 256KL2 (running the flight code)
GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 330 GPU
RAM: 2GB LPDDR3 PoP @ 931 MHz
Memory: 32GB eMMC Flash
Power: 5V MPU

Sensors
: Invensense MPU-9250 9-Axis Sensor, 3x3mm QFN
Barometer: Bosch BMP280 barometric pressure sensor
Optical Flow: Omnivision OV7251 on Sunny Module MD102A-200
Video: Sony IMX135 on Liteon Module 12P1BAD11 (4k @ 30fps 3840 × 2160 video capture to SD card with H.264 @ 100Mbits (1080p / 60 with parallel FPV), 720p FPV)
GPS: Telit Jupiter SE868 V2 module

Wifi: Qualcomm VIVE 1-stream 802.11n / ac with MU-MIMO † Integrated digital core
BT / WiFi: BT 4.0 and 2G / 5G WiFi
CSR SiRFstarV @ 5Hz via UART
USB 3.0 OTG port (micro-A / B)
Micro SD card slot
Port for connecting the camera gimbal
ESC connector (2W UART)
I2C
60-pin high speed Samtec QSH-030-01-LDAK expansion connector
2x BLSP

→ Machine Vision (MV) SDK
→ Snapdragon Flight ROS GitHub with VISLAM examples.