BMW autonomous driving efforts take a big leap forward. BMW, Qualcomm Technologies, and Arriver have teamed together to build the next generation of automated driving systems.
On Qualcomm Technologies’ system-on-chip, BMW’s existing AD stack is combined with Arriver’s Vision Perception and NCAP Drive Policy technologies, with the objective of building best-in-class Automated Driving features across NCAP, Level 2, and Level 3.
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Three innovative companies work together for BMW autonomous systems development
Arriver Software AB, BMW Group, Qualcomm Technology, Inc. have established a long-term development partnership for Automated Driving technologies.
The firms have inked a strategic partnership agreement that will concentrate on the combined development of next-generation AD technologies spanning from the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), Level 2 Advanced Driving Assistance Systems, and Level 3 High Automated Driving capabilities.
The software features will be co-developed based on the existing BMW Automated Driving software stack, which was initially introduced with the BMW iX in 2021 and will be enhanced in the following generation via this collaboration.
In November 2021, the companies announced that BMW’s next-generation Automated Driving System, which includes Arriver Computer Vision and the Snapdragon Ride Platform’s compute SoC controllers, will be ported to the Snapdragon Ride Vision system-on-chip (SoC), which will be managed by the Snapdragon® Car-to-Cloud Services platform.
Over 1,400 developers will work on the project
The efforts will be focused on developing a scalable Automated Driving platform based on a shared reference architecture, sensor-set standards, and safety criteria, as well as collaborative development, toolchain, and a data center for storage, reprocessing, and simulation.
More than 1,400 professionals will collaborate in locations throughout the globe, including Germany, the United States, Sweden, China, Romania, and the BMW AD Test Center in the Czech Republic.
“This joint software development is an important milestone for the BMW Group with regards to our next generation Automated Driving platform. To enable sophisticated and safe functionalities in a vehicle you need state-of-the-art software in all components of the digital value chain.
This forms the backbone for intelligent driver assistance systems. The BMW Group is excited to further extend our partnership with global technology leaders Qualcomm Technologies and Arriver to include a long-lasting strategic co-development cooperation in order to continue delivering world-class driving experiences to our customers.” says Nicolai Martin, Senior Vice President Driving Experience, BMW Group.
“We are proud of this long-term cooperation with the BMW Group and Arriver which focuses on co-development and deployment of Automated Driving systems from NCAP to Level 3 customer functionality in BMW upcoming series production vehicles,” said Nakul Duggal, Senior Vice President and General Manager Automotive, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
”Building on already commercialized stack components from BMW Group and Arriver, this cooperation will position us to extend BMW Automated Drive software to the Snapdragon Ride platform, and expand the accessibility of safer self-driving technologies to other automakers and Tier-1s in an open, flexible and scalable deployment framework.
We 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, which have always been an exemplar of the highest quality, performance and safety standards in modern day automobiles.”
“We are pleased that Arriver’s Vision Perception and market proven NCAP features will be combined with the BMW Automated Driving software stack. Joining forces with Qualcomm Technologies and BMW Group Arriver’s team will co-develop the next generation of open and scalable Drive Policy with world-class feature solutions and performance.
This co-developed product will be offered to our customers globally. This cooperation is a key milestone for Arriver and a proof point of the rich competence of our teams through years of experience in ADAS & safety,” said Giuseppe Rosso, President and Managing Director, Arriver.
The BMW Group, Qualcomm Technologies, and Arriver are collaborating closely to build and maintain an ecosystem for autonomous driving solutions, but they are open to new collaborations.
About Qualcomm Technologies
Qualcomm is a worldwide leader in the research and marketing of fundamental technologies and solutions for mobile phones and other wireless devices. We enable billions of people to connect, compute, and communicate throughout the globe with anything from network equipment to broadband gateway equipment to consumer electronic devices.
About Arriver
Arriver is a software brand, focused on sensor perception and drive policy, including a full stack of features and functions. Created in 2021, for the delivery of scalable Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Collaborative and Autonomous Driving (AD) solutions.
The Arriver platform will meet the rising need for scalable and upgradeable solutions in the automotive ecosystem, which requires extremely sophisticated and power-efficient computation, communication, and cloud service capabilities across all vehicle levels. Arriver directly tackles one of the automotive industry’s fastest-growing market megatrends: automation.
