Qualcomm unveils its first computer board for drones

Qualcomm, one of the world’s leading developers for smartphone chips, marched into the consumer drone market last week with a platform that could soon be steering a new generation of UAVs with bigger brains and smaller price tags.

Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon Flight, the first system-on-a-chip (SoC) built for consumer drones and robotic applications. The compact computer board, which is based on the Snapdragon 801 processor found in many highend Android phones, includes a quad-core 2.26 GHz processor, a digital signal processor for real-time flight control, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, a global navigation satellite system receiver and 4K video processing.

The Snapdragon Flight will make its debut in a Chinese Yuneec drone that hits markets in 2016. If Qualcomm’s new SoC meets expectations, the company could position itself as the leader of energyefficient drones with powerful image processing and communication capabilities.