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Robotics development on Qualcomm Linux is built around the Qualcomm Intelligent Robotics (QIR) SDK: a collection of ROS 2 packages, hardware-accelerated nodes, end-to-end sample applications, and a cross-compile toolchain for building robots on Qualcomm Dragonwing hardware. This section is a guided tour for evaluators and developers on the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ-9075 EVK and IQ-8275 EVK. It gives you the shape of the offering and links into the full QIR SDK documentation for every detailed step.
Start with the robotics image. The robotics image is a separate Qualcomm Linux product, not the stock Qualcomm Linux (QLI) 2.0 image with a few packages added. You cannot simply add the robotics overlays to a stock QLI 2.0 build. Read Robotics image and overlays before you flash or build anything.

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Choose your journey

The flowchart below shows the path from a bare board to a running robotics application. The fastest route is to flash the prebuilt robotics image (blue); building a customized image (purple) is optional. Every highlighted box is clickable.
The QIR SDK targets the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ-9075 EVK and IQ-8275 EVK on Qualcomm Linux 2.0. Support for the RB3 Gen 2 Vision Development Kit was removed from Qualcomm Linux GA1.8. For supported hardware, see Robotics image composition changes.

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What the QIR SDK gives you

QIR SDK overview

What the QIR SDK is, the components it ships, and the Dragonwing hardware it supports.

Software architecture

How the QIR SDK layers robotics components, function SDKs, and tools on top of Qualcomm Linux.

Robotics image and overlays

Why the robotics image is a distinct Yocto product, and how to get it or build it.

QRB ROS ecosystem

The zero-copy transport, NPU inference, camera, and benchmarking ROS 2 nodes.

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Get started

The quickest path to a running robot is to flash the prebuilt robotics image and run a sample application.

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Run sample applications

The QIR SDK ships end-to-end samples you can run on the dev kits. Availability depends on which robotics image you flashed (see Robotics image and overlays).

Robotics samples

AMR motion, SLAM, AprilTag, pick-and-place, and navigation in the simulator.

Platform samples

Cameras, lidar, audio, OCR, zero-copy camera, and system monitoring.

Develop applications

Compile a ROS 2 app with the QIR SDK toolchain and explore the available APIs.

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Build, customize, and migrate

These workflows are optional. Use them when you need a customized robotics image or are moving from Qualcomm Linux 1.0.