Qualcomm Announces Automotive Industry's Precise Positioning Support For Next Generation Vehicles

Qualcomm Technologies, announced today the latest additions to its portfolio of Qualcomm^® Automotive Wireless Solutions for next generation connected vehicles -- the Qualcomm^® Snapdragon^™ Automotive 4G Platform and the Qualcomm^® Snapdragon^™ Automotive 5G Platform.

The Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms feature integrated C-V2X direct communications, high-precision multi-frequency global navigation satellite system (HP-GNSS) and RF Front-End (RFFE) functionalities to support major operators across key spectrum bands globally.

With these functionalities, the Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms are designed to provide unmatched support for rich in-vehicle experiences, including dual SIM dual active (DSDA) (included on the Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform), precise positioning for lane level navigation accuracy, multi-gigabit cloud connectivity, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-roadside infrastructure (V2I) communications for safety, high bandwidth low latency teleoperations support, each of which are key requirements for automotive safety, platooning, autonomous, and always-connected driving experiences.

The new Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms are expected to sample later this year and are planned for production vehicles in 2021. Automakers will also have an opportunity to access the new platforms through the 2nd generation Qualcomm® Connected Car Reference Design (CCRD) anticipated to be available 2H this year.

The Snapdragon Automotive 4G Platform is Qualcomm Technologies' 6th generation multimode LTE modem for automotive. The Snapdragon Automotive 4G Platform is designed to support Full Dimensional Multi-Input Multi-Output (FD-MIMO) for up to five aggregated LTE carriers, allowing the Snapdragon Automotive 4G Platform to utilize spectrum deployed by global carriers.

The Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform is 3GPP Release 15-compliant and engineered to support FDD and TDD networks, as well as standalone (SA) and non-standalone (NSA) modes of operation - taking advantage of Qualcomm Technologies' latest 5G NR innovations and solutions introduced earlier this year. The Snapdragon Automotive 5G Platform is also designed to support a variety of emerging mobility services models and for the first time in an automotive platform, offers DSDA support to the car and driver to support each to choose their own independent network operator subscription, which can be managed through remote service provisioning.

Both Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms feature IP Acceleration (IPA) for optimization data transfer between LTE and complementary Qualcomm Wi-Fi 6 products, as well as supports the Qualcomm® Telematics Software Development Kit (SDK) to support an environment for application development.

Integrated C-V2X technology helps improve road safety-consciousness and traffic efficiency to ease congestion and increase capacity, by supporting direct V2V and direct V2I communications concurrently with 4G and 5G WWAN vehicle-to-network (V2N) connectivity.

The Snapdragon Automotive 4G and 5G Platforms support concurrent multi-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS, which includes GPS, Galileo, Glonass, BDS and QZSS with Qualcomm® Dead Reckoning 3 (QDR3) technology, optimized to provide highly accurate location positioning with a comprehensive virtually anytime/anywhere 3D navigation solution. This is done by including inertial measurements and other automotive sensors to support precise positioning in virtually all environment, including areas of degraded GNSS visibility.

“We believe our new Snapdragon Automotive Platforms will help launch the connected vehicle into the 5G era, offering multi-Gigabit low latency speeds, lane level navigation accuracy and an integrated and comprehensive C-V2X solution for increased road safety for cars and transportation infrastructure,” said Nakul Duggal, senior vice president of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “With these new wireless solutions, we are excited to support our automaker, Tier-1 and roadside infrastructure customers as they develop faster, safer and differentiated products for the next-generation of the connected car.”

Engineered to provide automakers the necessary tools to rapidly build and prototype smart and connected applications, the 2nd generation CCRD features a highly advanced suite of connectivity technologies, including LTE Advanced Pro or 5G utilizing either of the new Snapdragon Automotive Platforms, accompanied by C-V2X, HP-GNSS support, Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 6, RFFE for 4G and 5G, as well as a dedicated Qualcomm Technologies application processor with dedicated security accelerators for C-V2X and to support Qualcomm® Vision Enhanced Precise Positioning (VEPP). As a comprehensive telematics and V2X reference design, automakers and Tier-1 suppliers can utilize the capabilities of the 2nd generation CCRD to design and develop quickly, accelerating their time to commercialization.

The 2nd generation CCRD supports the needs of next generation connected vehicles, which now require multiple connectivity technologies to be connected to the network, including Cloud and Edge, as well as to each other, roadside infrastructure, and the overall environment. The new CCRD can also support precise location awareness and secure environment for advanced applications that support higher levels of intelligence, connected and autonomous driving use cases. Utilizing its heterogenous connectivity capabilities, the 2nd generation CCRD also facilitates superior communication between numerous connectivity technologies, such as 2G/3G/4G LTE/5G NR, C-V2X, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GNSS.