Meet QNX, contender for the nervous system of the future’s driverless cars
There’s a good chance the garage at Blackberry Ltd.’s QNX headquarters in Ottawa will be empty when a snowstorm hits.
The three slate-grey cars that normally reside in the garage (really more of a showroom crossed with a computer lab) — a Jeep and Mercedes, both wrapped in matte vinyl, and a Lincoln, each equipped with millions of lines of QNX code — will likely be out on the road, testing the sensors, cameras and software needed for connected, automated and, one day, completely self-driving vehicles.
Inclement weather is one of the biggest hurdles for self-driving cars, making Ottawa the perfect test climate, said Grant Courville, BlackBerry QNX vice-president of product management, on a tour of the facility — the heart of QNX, which BlackBerry has pinned much of its hopes for future success.
BlackBerry in 2010 bought QNX and its well-known software for powering critical systems such as nuclear power plants, surgical equipment and air traffic control. Eight years later, QNX software is in more than 60 million vehicles, mostly to provide entertainment and mapping systems.
But BlackBerry hopes to make more money from each car by expanding the software’s functionality. Eventually, these functions will merge with more traditional ones into one dashboard that controls everything from music to safety critical functions like warning lights.
QNX software will one day control everything from music to safety critical functions like warning lights.
“We want to be the software platform for the car,” Courville said, likening QNX in a car to the body’s nervous system.
QNX has already expanded from infotainment systems to advanced driver-assistance systems such as automatic emergency braking and lane assist. These features will be the building blocks for self-driving cars, Courville said.
Five years from now, he estimates many other functions will be automated, but he rolls his eyes at estimates that fully automated “level five” vehicles will be on the road by then.
“We tend to be very conservative,” he said, predicting instead it will be 15 to 20 years before fully automated vehicles can operate “anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”
The key impediment is the risk to public safety, which is top of mind after the “extremely unfortunate” incident in Arizona where Uber’s automated vehicle killed a pedestrian. The vehicle did not contain any QNX software, Courville said.
QNX has invested as much as $1 million into each test car which pack military-grade GPS units on the roof and the trunk full of automotive-grade silicone electronics.
Nevertheless, the pressure is on to develop software more people will pay for, given BlackBerry needs revenue growth.
BlackBerry recently struck deals with automakers Ford Motor Co. and Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, auto suppliers Denso Corp. and Delphi Technologies, and technology companies Baidu Inc. and Nvidia Corp. to use QNX technology in their products. It points to these partnerships as proof its strategy is working.
QNX employs about 300 engineers focused on the technology. At the garage, it uses high-end vehicles for testing since they’re already wired to handle software, Courville said.
He estimates QNX has invested $1 million into the Lincoln alone. It’s parked inside on a March afternoon with blue skies, so Courville shows off the military-grade GPS units on the roof and the trunk full of automotive-grade silicone electronics.
On a large screen mounted to the wall, different scenarios play out in what looks like a video game. One shows a pedestrian walking across a parking lot to model a car’s reaction.
Courville said it’s the most exciting time in his 30 years at QNX.
“Really, the stars are aligning between BlackBerry and QNX. If you think about where cars are going and the level of security they need, there’s no one on the planet that provides better security than BlackBerry,” he said.
But he also knows success will all come down to safety. “We can’t lose the public’s confidence.”