BlackBerry Japan held a press conference in Tokyo on June 5, 2024, emphasizing that the latest version of its software platform for embedded systems, "QNX SDP 8.0", is optimal for the development of industrial and medical robots. The company explained that it is a powerful option in terms of safety, security, and performance when commercializing robots that use "ROS 2", a robot development software framework that Japanese industrial robot manufacturers are focusing on. BlackBerry also demonstrated a controller and robot arm demo that enables real-time remote operation and haptic feedback by combining QNX SDP 8.0 and ROS 2.

BlackBerry's QNX is a software platform for embedded systems centered on the real-time operating system (RTOS) "QNX Neutrino". More than half of QNX's related business revenue is concentrated in the automotive sector, centered on in-vehicle infotainment (IVI). "The other half is widely used in mission-critical areas such as industrial automation, robotics, and medical devices. What is highly valued in common with the automotive sector is safety, centered on compliance with functional safety standards, advanced security based on the RTOS's microkernel architecture, and performance through real-time control," said Sachin Agarwal, Country Sales Manager of BlackBerry Japan. QNX, which already has a high level of recognition in Japan, plans to strengthen its business in the industrial robot sector, which has a significant presence in the global market, similar to the automotive sector. Japanese companies account for 45% of the global industrial robot market, with nearly 80% being exported overseas. Japan also has more than twice the number of robots per 10,000 people than the United States. "Industrial robots are very important to the Japanese economy, and we need to strengthen the supply chain, including software," Agarwal emphasized.

QNX SDP 8.0, announced in December 2023, is a significant evolution from its predecessor, "QNX SDP 7.1". By revisiting the core RTOS architecture of QNX, it has been significantly expanded to meet the requirements of the latest embedded devices. "More cores are being incorporated into processors, but we have made it possible to use that performance in a scalable way," emphasized Shiro Kiuchi, Principal Field Applications Engineer at BlackBerry Japan. While previously supporting a maximum of 16 cores, QNX SDP 8.0 supports up to 64 cores and introduces a thread scheduler in addition to the general scheduler. Interrupt handling can now be controlled more precisely, and the network stack has been changed from NetBSD to FreeBSD. Changes have also been made to the memory management mechanism to support larger amounts of memory. Although the architecture has undergone major changes, compatibility with previous versions, including QNX SDP 7.1, has been maintained. "There is an image that the processing performance will deteriorate because the processing load will increase as the functionality of the architecture is expanded, but there is no deterioration in processing performance at all," explained Kiuchi. In addition, the development environment can now be used with "Visual Studio Code", which is used by many software developers, in addition to the "Momentics" based on Eclipse that QNX has been providing for a long time.

QNX SDP 8.0 has undergone major performance upgrades, but safety and security have been maintained at the same level as previous versions. Safety is symbolized by the fact that it has obtained certification that meets the highest safety requirements in various functional safety standards, such as IEC 61508 SIL3, IEC 62304 Class C, and ISO 26262 ASIL D. "For robot SIers who build robot systems by combining various industrial robots, obtaining certification at the software level that forms the basis leads to cost savings in building systems that comply with functional safety standards," Kiuchi explained. Furthermore, the microkernel, which allows the separation of safety-critical components and non-safety-critical components, has not changed, so it is easier to ensure security compared to monolithic OSes including Linux.

At the press conference, BlackBerry demonstrated a demo combining the robot arm from Flexiv, a U.S. company that announced a partnership with BlackBerry in the industrial/medical robot field, and the remote operation/haptic feedback controller from Haply Robotics in Canada. The robot arm and controller are connected to the "i.MX 8M Plus" evaluation board from NXP Semiconductors, and QNX SDP 8.0 is equipped with ROS 2, which performs the linked control of the robot arm and controller, and OpenCV, which performs image recognition on the i.MX 8M Plus. "Industrial robot manufacturers in Japan are also developing using ROS 2, but there seem to be challenges in terms of safety, security, and real-time performance for commercialization. Using QNX SDP 8.0 will help solve these challenges," said Kiuchi.