BMW partners with Qualcomm to develop automated driving software solutions

BMW Group has joined hands with Qualcomm Technologies and Arriver Software AB to develop automated driving technologies. Under the long-term association, these three companies will work on next-generation autonomous driving technologies ranging from New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), Level 2 Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS) to Level 3 High Automated Driving functionalities.

The software will be based on the current BMW automated driving software stack first introduced with the BMW iX in 2021. The automaker says 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.

The cooperation between these three companies will see more than 1,400 technology specialists working together in locations worldwide, including Germany, the US, Sweden, China, Romania, and the BMW AD Test Center in the Czech Republic.

Speaking about this collaboration, Nicolai Martin, Senior Vice President, Driving Experience, BMW Group, said that this joint software development is an important milestone for the BMW Group with regards to its 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," Martin further added.

Besides working on autonomous driving technologies, the three companies are open for further collaboration as well, said the German luxury car brand. Autonomous driving technology is a segment where several global auto majors have been working for quite some time. BMW being one of the major automakers, is aiming to grab a sizeable chunk in the segment.