[Warlack]

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/10/blackbe...riverless-car/


BlackBerry?s QNX operating system may not be the hit in mobile phones that the company hoped, but one day QNX may be helping you with a different kind of mobility: the autonomous car.

BlackBerry is working with VisLab, an Italian laboratory run by the University of Parma that focuses on computer vision research. One of its avenues of study is the driverless car, and VisLab has already developed several prototypes of cars that can do far more than just park themselves or automatically adjust their highway cruising speeds. It?s demonstrated concept vehicles that can negotiate crowed pedestrian intersections and traffic circles as well as drive independently in rush-hour traffic.

Last month, VisLab unveiled its latest test vehicle called DEEVA. In addition to sporting more than 20 cameras and four laser scanners, Deeva has QNX?s latest Neutrino OS under the hood. A first glance, QNX inside a vehicle is nothing special. BlackBerry?s embedded OS has long dominated the market for vehicle instrument clusters, infotainment and other control systems. But this implementation of Neutrino won?t just store your radio presets or display your acceleration.


VisLab?s DEEVA test car (source: VisLab)
In Deeva, Neutrino will fuse together the various real-time streams of camera and laser data collected from the car?s two dozen visual sensors, allowing the connected car to make instant decisions about trajectory, acceleration and braking as traffic conditions change and obstacles present itself. While other systems besides Neutrino can do that kind of processing, QNX has a long history in mission-critical applications, powering embedded systems in the Space Shuttle and nuclear power plants along with millions of cars, VisLab CEO and President Alberto Broggi said.

?In the design of our vehicle, we selected building blocks offering high reliability with proven safety records; the operating system powering the vital elements of the vehicle is one of those and is why we chose the QNX OS,? Broggi said in a statement.

VisLab plans to demo the capabilities of its new experimental car this summer.

As a new generation of cars emerge that can not only link to the internet but sense and react to their surroundings, a lot of companies� ? from Qualcomm and Nvidia to Apple and Google ? have suddenly gotten interested in the inner workings of the automobile. While QNX faces more competition, it?s also wound up partnering with a lot of those companies as it tries to translate its dominance in the un-connected car to the connected car.

[belfastdispatcher]

Driverless cars, what a boring world that would be, I feel sorry for the future generations.


#believeinfilm

[app_Developer]

So QNX still doesn't make any sense to me as a kernel for a phone (or at least what a smartphone has become). I think for various reasons Linux is the right choice for smartphones.

But a driverless car is an application where the QNX kernel actually makes a *lot* of sense to me. I think it would be great for BlackBerry to invest in areas like this which are a great use of their QNX asset.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[app_Developer]

Driverless cars, what a boring world that would be, I feel sorry for the future generations.


#believeinfilm

When this becomes available and reasonably priced, I will definitely buy one to take me to work and back.

I'd still keep fun cars for the weekend of course. Kind of like how I listen to vinyl a lot, but I listen to digital every day because of the convenience.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[belfastdispatcher]

When this becomes available and reasonably priced, I will definitely buy one to take me to work and back.

I'd still keep fun cars for the weekend of course. Kind of like how I listen to vinyl a lot, but I listen to digital every day because of the convenience.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

When that becomes available insurance will price you out of the fun car for weekend I'm afraid. I doubt they'll be allowed to coexist for long.


#believeinfilm

[Troy Tiscareno]

So QNX still doesn't make any sense to me as a kernel for a phone (or at least what a smartphone has become). I think for various reasons Linux is the right choice for smartphones.

But a driverless car is an application where the QNX kernel actually makes a *lot* of sense to me. I think it would be great for BlackBerry to invest in areas like this which are a great use of their QNX asset.

I'm not disagreeing that QNX could power driverless cars - I fully believe it could. But there are Real-Time versions of Linux too. For example, that's what's being used here (in 2012):

[app_Developer]

I'm not disagreeing that QNX could power driverless cars - I fully believe it could. But there are Real-Time versions of Linux too. For example, that's what's being used here (in 2012):

Yeah, that's true. I think QNX may be still quite a bit ahead of RT Linux, IMO. I'm sure the Google engineers felt differently, which I can understand.

But I think as a strategy, I would focus QNX on applications where its features actually align with the requirements. Modern smartphones are not a good fit, and is sort of pointless. There are other applications that could be awesome fits, though.


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[Aljean Thein]

That's awesome. I hate driving too far. This could help a lot of people and especially the lazy ones like myself

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[belfastdispatcher]

That's awesome. I hate driving too far. This could help a lot of people and especially the lazy ones like myself

Posted via CB10

There's that thing called public transport


#believeinfilm

[Aljean Thein]

There's that thing called public transport


#believeinfilm

And be in the bus with some weird people?

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[Ment]

The lane assist features in todays premium car models. Are they run on QNX or by something else.

[belfastdispatcher]

And be in the bus with some weird people?

Posted via CB10

Wow, just wow! They're people just like you.


#believeinfilm

[Warlack]

I can't stand people who are just like me! Weirdos like that shouldn't be allowed on public transport :-p

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