Sign up for our weekly email to stay on top of the latest news and insights!
Source: General Motors announcement
DETROIT – GM announced that its next-generation hands-free driver assist system, Ultra Cruise, will be powered by a scalable compute architecture featuring system-on-chips developed by American semiconductor company Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
GM will be the first company to use the Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Ride™ Platform for advanced driver assistance technology, which features an industry-leading 5-nanometer Snapdragon™ SA8540P SoC and SA9000P artificial intelligence accelerator.
Ultra Cruise’s compute, which is about the size of two laptops stacked together, will be available in 2023 on vehicles including the ultra-luxury, fully-electric Cadillac CELESTIQ. With high performance sensor interfaces and memory bandwidth, it will, in combination with GM’s homegrown Ultra Cruise software stack, be key to helping Ultra Cruise achieve an unmatched combination of capability, reliability, predictability and robust door-to-door hands-free driving in 95 percent of all driving scenarios.
Related post:
Ultra Cruise Brings Hands-Free Driving to Most Roads
“Despite its relatively small size, Ultra Cruise’s compute will have the processing capability of several hundred personal computers,” said Ken Morris, GM vice president of Electric, Autonomous and Fuel Cell Vehicle Programs. “It will take qualities that have distinguished GM’s advanced driver assist systems since 2017 to the next level with door-to-door hands-free driving.”
The system’s compute will help power GM-developed ADAS software and features, including perception, planning, localization and mapping. These Ultra Cruise capabilities were developed in-house at GM engineering facilities in Israel, the United States, Ireland and Canada. To ensure a robust and predictable system with minimal latency, GM integrated Ultra Cruise’s software on an optimal hardware design, overlaying cameras, radar and LiDAR. This low-level, sensor fusion, which provides excellent detection and classification of data, and Ultra Cruise’s software stack are proprietary to GM, not available on the automotive aftermarket.
Sign up for our weekly email to stay on top of the latest news and insights!
The Ultra Cruise computer is comprised of two Snapdragon SA8540P SoCs and one SA9000P AI accelerator to deliver key low-latency control functions on 16-core CPUs and high-performance AI compute of more than 300 Tera Operations Per Second for camera, radar and lidar processing. The Snapdragon SoCs are designed with 5nm process technology, enabling superior performance and power efficiency. The Snapdragon SA8540P SoCs will provide the necessary bandwidth for Ultra Cruise’s sensing, perception, planning, localization, mapping and driver monitoring.
To view the entire announcement, click HERE.
