Popular smartphone chipset maker, Qualcomm has announced its foray into the advancing consumer drones markets with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight. The platform is optimised for the consumer drones and robotics application.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight is a 58 x 40mm highly integrated board based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC and also adds advanced drone software and development tools, and robust connectivity. The SD 801 has a quad-core Krait CPU, a clock speed up to 2.6GHz, Adreno 330 GPU, Hexagon DSP, dedicated video encode engine and dual image signal processors (ISP).
The Snapdragon Flight has Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology for fast charging, 4K high resolution camera support, built-in Dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) for precise location positioning and also features real-time flight assistance.
Speaking on the launch of the Snapdragon Flight, Raj Talluri, senior vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc said;
“Today, drones are made from multiple component vendors providing separate solutions for photography, navigation and communications, adding to the cost and bulk of consumer drones. The Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight brings together the technologies that have defined the mobile industry onto a single board, enabling OEMs to build drones that are lighter, smaller, easy to use and affordable with long battery life and superior functionalities.
Drones are enabling a broad range of applications such as aerial photography, the ultimate selfie accessory and sports filming, so the ability to shoot in 4K is a must-have feature. Qualcomm Technologies is already a leader in bringing 4K video capture to consumers having over 500 device designs powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors with 4K UltraHD video capability, allied with the highly integrated SoC, so it’s natural for us to support the same technologies in the consumer drone space.”
Consumer and professional Drone company, Yuneec will be the first OEM confirmed to use the Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight; the first drone using the platform would be released sometime in 2016.
Source: Qualcomm
