The fully autonomous SLAM Navigator version of Oculus Prime has just had a system hardware upgrade: it now comes standard with the new ASUS N3150IC mini-ITX mainboard, equipped with an Intel Braswell 14nm N3150 CPU.

Autonomous navigation using the ROS Navigation Stack is highly CPU intensive. The older Intel Atom N2800 boards we were previously using were up to the task, but the Intel N3150 offers a serious performance boost:

• Navigation system start-up is 3X faster
• Fewer localization errors during driving due to high CPU
• Faster and more accurate mapping (fewer missed scan matches)
• Faster live video encoding and image processing
• RAM expandable to 8Gb

The board meets Oculus Prime’s requirements, with the CPU rated at a power-sipping 6W TDP, so the battery still lasts 3-4 hours like before, and it has a spare mini-PCIe slot for Wifi.

Overclockers rejoice: that massive gold heatsink barely gets warm with the GPU being unused!