BMW, Qualcomm Technologies and its newly acquired Arriver are working together to co-develop the next generation of automated driving systems.
The long-term development cooperation combines BMW’s current AD stack with Arriver’s Vision Perception and NCAP Drive Policy products on Qualcomm Technologies’ system-on-chip, with the goal of designing best-in-class Automated Driving functions spanning NCAP, Level 2 and Level 3.
The co-development of software functions is based on the current BMW Automated Driving software stack first launched with the BMW iX in 2021, which will be further extended in the next generation through this cooperation.
In November 2021, the three companies announced that BMW’s next-generation Automated Driving System will be ported on the Snapdragon Ride Vision system-on-chip (SoC) including Arriver Computer Vision and the Snapdragon Ride Platform’s compute SoC controllers managed by Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud Services platform.
The efforts will focus on creating a scalable platform for automated driving based on a common reference architecture, sensor-set specifications, and safety requirements with joint development, toolchain, and a data centre for storage, reprocessing, and simulation.
Also, the joint efforts will see more than 1,400 specialists working together in locations worldwide, including Germany, the United States, Sweden, China, Romania, and the BMW AD Test Centre in the Czech Republic.
“To enable sophisticated and safe functionalities in a vehicle you need state-of-the art software in all components of the digital value chain,” says Nicolai Martin, BMW’s SVP for Driving Experience. “This forms the backbone for intelligent driver assistance systems.”
Nakul Duggal, SVP and general manager automotive at Qualcomm Technologies, said they believe Snapdragon Ride will create significant economies of scale and time-to-market benefits across the automotive industry with the launch of the automated driving software globally in BMW’s series production vehicles.
“This co-developed product will be offered to our customers globally,” said Giuseppe Rosso, president and managing director of Arriver.
Further, the three companies are open to additional partners.
