Sometime back I had written how the Augmented Reality / Glasses have moved beyond just Hardware and into a combination of many things (www.mistralsolutions.com/augmented-reality-virtual-reality-mixed-reality-reality/). In this article, I look into the Hardware & the system software that powers these bleeding edge new generation products & applications like glasses, Drones, gaming devices, Machine Learning and AI using the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon platform with Heterogeneous computing architecture.

Let’s delve into how anyone can take advantage of mighty Snapdragon 820 platform with Mistral’s 820 Nano SOM (http://www.mistralsolutions.com/product-engineering-services/products/som-modules/nano-som/), a veritable powerhouse with 64-bit ARMv8-compliant quad-core applications processor combined with a Hexagon DSP and Adreno 530 GPU.

Compared to other platforms available in the market today, Mistral has added many a novel feature on its 820 Nano SOM, the important ones being 9 AXIS MEMS Sensor and USB Type C support making this a very compelling product for anybody who is looking to start a new product development that needs top of the line performance integrated with WLAN, GPS, BT & BLE connectivity and powered by battery power.

USB-C being a relatively new technology  is currently included in devices like the newest laptops, phones, and tablets. We are probably the first and one of the very early adopters of this technology bringing it to the embedded product world.  USB-C cables can carry significantly more power which in turn helps to charge larger batteries at much quicker time. They also have the added advantage of double the transfer speed of USB 3 at 10 Gbps.  This is a great advantage while doing design miniaturization for products like mixed reality glasses, Drones and even for larger devices like customized and industrial tablets considering the faster charge time and higher data transfer ability occupying a very small real estate compared to some of the older USB technologies.

Apart from the charging and data throughput, another feature that Mistral is bringing to table with our SD820 Nano SOM is Display Port (DP) over Type C. We can have dual display support on the embedded device which was the exclusive domain of PCs and Laptops.

The 9 AXIS MEMS sensor on the module itself is such a compelling feature for product developers of the Drone, head mounted glass, gaming device or even a special purpose tablet.

It enables host of applications such as

• Head tracking
• Camera and motion control for navigation and control in real and virtual environments enabling applications like flight simulators, head mounted mouse, remote controlled vehicles etc.,
• Gesture recognition
• Gait and tremor analysis
• Major improvements in virtual 3D environments such as CAD models and virtual gaming

These are some of the cool features on the SnapDragon SOM hardware front but when combined with the software that it comes with, Android O & Yocto Linux (www.mistralsolutions.com/product-engineering-services/products/som-modules/nano-som/) this becomes a truly compelling solution for the product developers.

And it doesn’t stop there! We understand when you are developing some of these cool products; you need more than the basic module, software and the hardware. So we went ahead and built a Camera adaptor board that supports imaging applications with our SnapDragon 820 Development Kit with resolutions ranging from 2MP to 13MP providing imaging resolution up to 4K.

We also have a display adaptor board that supports 5” LCD panel with HD Resolution and backlight intensity control.

Today, with the amount of innovation happening all over the world, the most important aspect is providing the basic building blocks to the Engineering community and more importantly the young school and college students who can have access to these advanced platforms and software at most affordable price. Keeping that in mind, we brought out 820 Starter kit that has our full featured SD820 Nano SOM with a Carrier Board that provides access to interfaces such as USB over Type-C & Camera among others. This is priced at a very competitive price of $349 that levels the field and helps innovation.

We understand that not everybody wants to mess around with the hardware and the system software. They would rather be happy to create the applications that will be driving the future glasses or drones or gaming gadgets. For such people & companies our professional services team is always ready to churn out customized hardware and firmware including helping you take your product all the way to market. You just need to concentrate on your differentiator and we will take care of the mundane stuff like customized hardware, firmware, testing, prototype and production. (https://www.mistralsolutions.com/services/)

Do check out these products and services and let us know how we can help you achieve the height of product innovation that you are aiming for!!

Written by: Srinivas Panapakam