Innovating, building and connecting at the intelligent edge

Did you see us at AWS re:Invent?

Our home at AWS re:Invent this year was the Venetian Hotel, booth #2057 in the Expo AI/ML, IoT, Robotics Area from November 29-December 3.

Why are we at AWS re:Invent? Besides 5G technology and Snapdragon® mobile processors, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. is leading the way in IoT-related areas like on-device AI, computer vision, codecs, digital signal processing and power efficiency. Developers worldwide use our tools and hardware to take their innovations from the drawing board to production. And participating in AWS re:Invent is part of our tradition of starting and energizing ecosystems around mobile wireless networks.

We’re showing off working IIoT demos built around SDKs and tools you can download from QDN to build capabilities like these into your solutions:

  • On-device AI inferencing
  • Edge computing
  • 5G
  • Object/face detection
  • Wi-Fi 6
  • Deep learning
  • Computer vision
  • LIDAR
  • Amazon Kinesis Video Streams (KVS)
  • 7-camera concurrency
  • Autonomous drone flight

Plus, you can order the hardware kits through links from Qualcomm Developer Network (QDN). Qualcomm Developer Network (QDN), where you can also explore additional solutions around IoT, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Have a look at the demos below and see how you can build new products around use cases like these:

Follow QDN for a continual stream of developer resources as you optimize your IIoT products and solutions.

Autonomous robotics navigation and voice activation

Qualcomm® Robotics RB5


Take your robotics development beyond moving and lifting, into navigation and voice activation. This demo revolves around the Qualcomm Robotics RB5 platform, available to you in the Qualcomm Robotics RB5 Development Kit. We also have a published project to help you walk through this set-up called, Autonomous Voice Activated Robot.

This demo implements stop sign detection and lane tracking using camera-based AI and integrates it with obstacle detection and avoidance using LIDAR. It also has voice activation to control the robot using voice commands. The Qualcomm Robotics RB5 development kit is mounted on the Turtlebot3 Burger. It uses data from the LIDAR sensor and interfaces with the OpenCR board on the Turtlebot3 to drive it.

The demo showcases the functions in the kit: AI, deep learning, computer vision, 7-camera concurrency, security and rich multimedia, with the heterogeneous computing power to run it all efficiently. You can connect to it over Wi-Fi 6, or over LTE/5G/CBRS by means of a mezzanine card.

Have a look at the Qualcomm Robotics RB5 if you’re working on projects like autonomous mobile robots (AMR), inventory robots, retail robots, cobots, pick-sort-place robots, cleaning robots, first-/last-mile robots, prosumer and commercial drones and industrial robots. You’ll find developers have created and shared projects around the robot using OpenManipulator, Alexa Skills, autonomous exploration/navigation and object detection with TensorFlow Lite.

The Qualcomm Robotics RB5 development kit is available through Thundercomm, a member of our Qualcomm Advantage Network.





Remote kiosk with AI inferencing on the edge

QCS610 Application Processor

If you’re working on use cases like object/human detection, people counting and license plate recognition, then you’ve probably experimented with AI inferencing at the network edge. This demo uses the camera and face detection on a remote kiosk to trigger a call to the concierge using Amazon Kinesis Video Streams to provide virtual support in various scenarios.

  • SSD Mobilenet V2 face detection model
  • Live stream using Amazon Kinesis Video Streams (KVS) on the dashboard to show possible hospitality greetings
  • Alert triggered through AWS IoT
  • Live stream from local camera in one half of monitor and recorded videos from concierge in other half
  • Visible counter of kiosk calls made (or visitors to booth, etc.)
  • Qualcomm® QCS610 application processor with 8 cores and the heterogeneous computing power for high-quality images and video with low power consumption

Thanks to our Qualcomm Advantage Network member company eInfoChips for their help in collaborating on bringing this demo to life. The demo, which is based on the eInfoChips Camera Reference Design, is a good example of taking the compute to the data instead of shuttling the data to and from the compute. The QCS610 offers performance and power efficiency for on-device AI edge applications in industrial IoT, smart AI enterprise security and home IP cameras.

Have a look at other sample projects built around the QCS610.

5G and AI in a single unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design

Qualcomm Flight™ RB5 5G Reference Design

You’ve waited long enough to try autonomous flying. Here’s your chance.

You can use the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Reference Design (available from ModalAI) as a UAV in applications like disaster relief, asset inspection, mapping, package delivery and film/entertainment. It’s built around the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Platform and engineered for low power consumption, high performance and low latency. For more information about ModalAI, please be sure to visit their page on our Qualcomm Advantage Network.

Plus, it offers high intelligence and long range. You get high intelligence through perception and computer vision with algorithms for obstacle avoidance and self-guidance. Then, you get long range with on-board Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) for swarm and drone-to-drone communication. Through an optional mezzanine board, you can add LTE/5G/CBRS and extend your range beyond visual line of sight to the edge of cellular coverage.

The platform opens up heterogeneous computing opportunities on several dedicated engines:

  • Qualcomm® Artificial Intelligence Engine, delivering up to 15 trillion operations per second (TOPS) for deep-learning workloads and autonomous flight
  • Qualcomm® Hexagon™ Tensor Accelerator (HTA) with up to 8 TOPS for accurate edge inferencing
  • Qualcomm Spectra™ 480 CV image signal processor (ISP) for 8K video recording and 4K high dynamic range (HDR) video capture with 7-camera concurrency

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Additional Resources


Qualcomm Robotics, Qualcomm QRB5165, Qualcomm QCS610, Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence Engine, Qualcomm Hexagon and Qualcomm Spectra and Qualcomm Flight RB5 are products of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Qualcomm Advantage Network is a program of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.