These days it's common to see drones equipped with high-definition cameras and special sensors. However, Nvidia has something much more advanced in mind. The platform is called Jetson TX1, and with a performance of one teraFLOP it aims to bring the concept of a "mobile supercomputer" to all kinds of autonomous vehicles, including drones focused on image recognition and deep learning.
The age of smart devices
Phones became smart. Then came televisions, watches, lamps, bracelets, clothing (casual and sports clothing), cars, bicycles… and honestly that conversion isn't finished. How does a device become smart? It really depends on the developer, but a quite common parameter is the incorporation of what we call "processing power". In other words, all these accessories are specialized computers. Processor, GPU, RAM, internal storage, general interfaces, connectivity... the definition fits perfectly. Without doubt, computers gain more performance with each new generation, but they also improve in miniaturization and energy consumption. The latest proof of this comes from Nvidia.
Jetson TX1 specifications and price
The module you see in the image is called Jetson TX1, and it serves as a direct replacement for the TK1 model that the company launched in March of last year. Although the TK1 offers a not-to-be-sneezed-at 326 gigaFLOPs, the new Jetson TX1 raises GPU performance to one teraFLOP, courtesy of its chip based on the Maxwell architecture with 256 cores. The CPU has been identified as an ARM A57 (Nvidia did not reveal the number of cores), RAM amounts to 4 GB in LPDDR4 format, and its internal storage reaches 16 GB. Jetson TX1 connectivity is via Bluetooth or WiFi ac, and as an operating system it offers a variant of Linux for Tegra chips.
The best part is that Nvidia delivers all this hardware under a consumption threshold that does not exceed 10 watts, and with dimensions of 50 by 87 millimeters. If we consider that the GPU of an Xbox One sits just above 1.3 teraFLOPs, I think Nvidia can afford to call the Jetson TX1 a "mobile supercomputer". What will be its applications? Deep learning, neural network processing and management of autonomous vehicles appear at the top of the list. The official price for the development kit is $599 (students and teachers will get a 50 percent discount), and pre-orders begin tomorrow. Those who want only the module will have to wait until next year, and most likely won't pay less than $299 for it.
