The original Qualcomm® RB3 development kit was, from the hardware standpoint, the stuff that embedded developers’ dreams are made of.
Earlier this year, Qualcomm Technologies announced the release of Gen 2 of the Qualcomm RB3 kit. This new version is fully integrated into the standard embedded Linux workflow: it ships with Qualcomm® Linux® platform, a comprehensive package of software, tools, and documentation designed for Qualcomm Technologies' IoT platforms. Now, embedded developers can work with the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 hardware in their favorite development and build environments, including the Yocto Project/Open Embedded.
This orientation to a Linux environment has also allowed Foundries.io, to build support for the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 development system into the FoundriesFactory™ DevSecOps platform. Now a more streamlined way to take a new design based on the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 through development and into production is in a new FoundriesFactory project configured with Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 as the hardware platform.
A choice of application-oriented SDKs
Powerful as they are, the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 hardware capabilities are not the only exciting thing about the kit. The hardware is certainly impressive: a Qualcomm® QCS6490 chipset provides super-fast octa-core applications processor performance, and twin video cameras backed by a Qualcomm Spectra™ ISP 570L image processing engine.
The Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 also has dedicated video and display processing chips and provides outstanding performance in machine learning applications thanks to its Qualcomm® Kryo™ 670 CPU and Qualcomm® Hexagon™ processor, which has a fused AI accelerator architecture.
But it’s the software support for applications that will do as much to accelerate embedded development. Software development kits (SDKs) supplied with Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 include a Neural Processing SDK for AI, an Intelligent Multimedia Product SDK, an Intelligent Robotics Product SDK, and a Hexagon DSP SDK.
The kit is an ideal platform for industrial and commercial IoT products such as:
- Ruggedized handhelds and tablets
- Human-machine interface systems
- Point-of-sale systems
- Drones
- Kiosks
- Edge AI boxes
- Connected cameras
FoundriesFactory support smooths path to production and beyond
The combination of feature-rich hardware and SDK support makes the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 kit a developer’s delight for work on proof-of-concept or prototype designs.
By starting a Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 project inside the FoundriesFactory platform, developers can get started quickly, with access to all the SDKs available in Qualcomm Linux and to the Linux microPlatform (LmP) operating system—a minimal, securable, updatable, and customizable distribution. More than this, the FoundriesFactory DevSecOps environment provides an integrated flow; from development through to testing and validation, and onwards to production, deployment in the field, and securable over-the-air (OTA) updating.
So a successful project started in the FoundriesFactory environment can readily be converted from a prototype to a production design, then maintained to using the open-source tools and utilities that embedded Linux developers are familiar with. The security features enabled by the platform, such as an automatically generated software bill-of-materials for each production unit, and The Update Framework (TUF)-based OTA updating, also provide the industry’s easiest route to help OEMs to comply with security regulations such as the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act.
So these two products —the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 kit and the FoundriesFactory platform— are the ideal complement, helping developers realize their ideas for IoT devices more quickly and effectively.
Learn more about Foundries.io’s support for the Qualcomm RB3 Gen 2 kit, contact us to schedule a free technical demo.
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