BMW Group, Qualcomm Technologies, and Arriver Software have entered a long-term partnership to develop next-generation automated driving (AD) technologies, ranging from New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), Level 2 Advanced Driving Assistance Systems to Level 3 High Automated Driving functionalities.
The joint software development will be 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 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.
“This 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,” said Nicolai Martin, senior vice president - Driving Experience, BMW Group.
The three-way partnership 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.
The cooperation will see more than 1,400 specialists working together in locations worldwide, including Germany, USA, Sweden, China, Romania, and the BMW AD Test Center in Czech Republic.
According to Nakul Duggal, senior vice president and general manager for automotive at Qualcomm, building on already commercialised stack components from BMW Group and Arriver “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”.
He added: “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.”
Giuseppe Rosso, president and managing director of Arriver, is pleased that Arriver’s Vision Perception and NCAP features will be combined with the BMW Automated Driving software stack.
“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,” he said, adding the co-developed product will be offered to the company’s customers worldwide.
