Qualcomm Announces RB3, its First Platform Designed for Robots

Chip-maker Qualcomm has unveiled its first dedicated platform for always-connected robots called RB3, based on last year’s Snapdragon 845 System-on-a-Chip and highly optimized for use in drones and other robots. The platform covers AI and sensor processing, support for private LTE networks, security and odometry for localization, mapping and navigation. One attractive feature is that it is a flexible system that allows the customer to choose any operating system, such as Linux, the Robot Operating System or Amazon’s AWS Robomaker. The company also said it plans to support Ubuntu Linux in the future. Products utilizing the RB3 system are expected to be rolled out during 2019 with development kits already made available. Key manufacturers are expected to be LG and Naver from Korea, Anki from the US, and JD.com and OrionStar from China. A 5G network enabled version is expected this year, permitting low latency and high-throughput for industrial robotics applications.