Qualcomm Dragonwing (QNN)

Developer Preview of deploying the EyePop.ai runtime to Qualcomm Dragonwing (QNN) devices

Early access. Validated only on the Innodisk EXEC-Q911. Support for other QNN-capable Dragonwing devices is planned; these steps are device-specific for now.

Dragonwing Runtime

Run the EyePop runtime on a Qualcomm Dragonwing device with Docker, accelerated by the on-device NPU through the Qualcomm AI Runtime (QAIRT) via the QNN execution provider.

Validated device: Innodisk EXEC-Q911.

Requirements

• Innodisk EXEC-Q911 (or a compatible Dragonwing device)

• An Innodisk-provided Ubuntu image flashed to the device — use it rather than the stock Qualcomm image so all IO keeps working (see iQ-Studio for flashing/boot guides)

• Docker

• Qualcomm AI Runtime (QAIRT) SDK installed on the device (see Prepare The Device)

• EyePop dashboard access

0. Prepare The Device (QAIRT)

The runtime needs a preinstalled QAIRT SDK on the host. Use Innodisk's iQ-Studio to boot the device and provision the BSP:

git clone https://github.com/InnoIPA/iQ-Studio.git
cd iQ-Studio && ./install.sh

Apply the new group membership without logging out:

newgrp docker

Point QAIRT_SDK_ROOT at your QAIRT install — the runtime mounts it into the container. Confirm the lib/ tree exists (paths vary by QAIRT version and Hexagon target):

export QAIRT_SDK_ROOT=/opt/qcom/aistack/qairt/<version>
ls "$QAIRT_SDK_ROOT/lib/hexagon-v73/unsigned"

1. Get The Server Files From The Dashboard

Open https://dashboard.eyepop.ai, go to My Servers, and click Add Server. The dashboard provides eyepop-instance.yml and a Docker registry login command.

Save eyepop-instance.yml on the device (for example ~/eyepop/eyepop-instance.yml). It looks like:

eyepop-account-uuid: <your EyePop account UUID>
eyepop-api-key: <your EyePop API key>
instance-name: <your server name>

Make it readable by Docker:

chmod 644 eyepop-instance.yml

2. Log In To The Registry

Run the dashboard's Docker login command on the device:

printf '%s' '<registry key secret>' | docker login registry.eyepop.ai \
  -u '<registry key username>' \
  --password-stdin

The registry key secret is sensitive — keep it out of support tickets and logs.

3. Start The Runtime

From the directory containing eyepop-instance.yml:

docker run -d \
  --name eyepop-runtime \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --privileged \
  --device /dev:/dev \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  --group-add "$(getent group fastrpc | cut -d: -f3)" \
  --group-add "$(getent group dmaheap | cut -d: -f3)" \
  -e ADSP_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/qairt/lib/hexagon-v73/unsigned \
  -e LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib:/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu:/opt/qairt/lib/aarch64-oe-linux-gcc11.2:/lib.host:/lib.host/aarch64-linux-gnu \
  -v "$QAIRT_SDK_ROOT:/opt/qairt:ro" \
  -v /usr/lib:/lib.host:ro \
  -v "$PWD/eyepop-instance.yml:/etc/eyepop-instance.yml:ro" \
  registry.eyepop.ai/ai/runtime-qnn:latest

The device flags let the non-root runtime reach the Hexagon NPU: --privileged/--device expose the devices, the fastrpc and dmaheap host group IDs are resolved at run time, and QAIRT plus host libraries are mounted read-only at /opt/qairt and /lib.host. The ADSP_LIBRARY_PATH/LD_LIBRARY_PATH values match the EXEC-Q911 — adjust them if your QAIRT layout or Hexagon version differs.

4. Verify

curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/health   # health
curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/ready    # readiness
docker logs -f eyepop-runtime       # logs

First start takes a minute while the runtime registers; the first model run is slower while the model downloads and caches.

Stop Or Update

docker stop eyepop-runtime && docker rm eyepop-runtime

To update, pull a newer tag and re-run step 3:

docker pull registry.eyepop.ai/ai/runtime-qnn:<tag>