Hardware Pioneers 2022: NXP's Autonomous Vehicle Hardware Rundown

Autonomous Vehicles were a common talking point at Hardware Pioneers 2022. It's no surprise as AI-enhanced logistics, and consumer vehicles are set to take on even more significant roles in the near future.

NXP have been creating hardware and tools in this field for a long time and cater not only to the industry but to education settings, too, through the NXP cup and Hovergames competitions.

We chatted to Loïc Fernau about an example rover they had at the show, highlighting NXP's tech for various EV uses, including parts used in the NXP Cup autonomous vehicle competition. 

The car is set up to do several things, including following a user via Ultra Wide Band (UWB) via a Trimention SR150 chip. The car features the FMU K66 (a flight management unit), along with power and battery management, two i.MX boards (one with a dedicated TensorFlow machine learning core) and a sophisticated CAN hub.

NXP also had some interesting things on display at the booth for plenty of other scenarios too.

Perhaps the most interesting all-in-one solution was a touch screen built into a PCB containing everything needed for a Human Interface Device. It's voice-activated, which isn't all that exciting compared to the home assistants we've all become used to, but there's an important difference. It's doing the speech recognition locally.

Edge devices that can interact independently allow AI-enhanced tech to exist independent of connectivity (and not sending endless potentially private data to the cloud is also great). Head to the NXP website to find out more about the i.MX Mini, the FMU mentioned in the video above, and the NXP drone Hovergames competition.