Qualcomm, the company that makes the Snapdragon processors powering most of today’s high-end smartphones, has confirmed it is now powering drones too with its first commercially powered model available later this year.

The new chip, dubbed Snapdragon Flight, naturally, is expected to cut the price of the average 4K camera drone by a fourth, triple battery life, and allow users to share footage recorded straight from the drone while still in flight. 

Detailing some of the new features of its SnapDragon Flight processor, the company has released a teaser video. Qualcomm put camera and communication tech onto the same board, and it's bragging about some of the advantages to that, including the fact that Flight offers an autonomous navigation mode.

That means your unmanned aerial vehicle will be able to do its thing and return to you - all while dodging obstacles it might encounter during its flight path. The platform features obstacle mapping, motion planning, optical flow camera, visual inertial odometry, and support for 4K video and Quick Charge.

Snapdragon Flight, which is based on the Snapdragon 801 processor (2.26Ghz quad core and Adreno 330 GPU), is already available for select manufacturers and expected to be commercially available in early 2016.

Qualcomm is demoing Snapdragon Flight at CES. Pocket-lint is attending the show this year, of course, and will bring you a preview of the chipmaker's latest tech, so stay tuned to our CES 2016 hub for more.