You know you want to own your own KITT. Every little boy who grew up in the ’80s thought about it. I did. I never thought it was possible. With all the AI tools we have now, it is more realistic – and, in the same breath, a little less interesting. But I still wanted to get it dialed in.
The whole build starts with one stubborn constraint: the truck sits for days at a time, and when it sits, nothing is supposed to be awake. This is a computer for a 1969 Chevy Blazer (and a second truck, a Dodge). It sleeps until my phone comes near, wakes, boots, and talks. Offline-first, low power, always-on sentry that draws almost nothing and a real computer that stays dark until it is needed.
My problem at this point is how to turn on/off the heavier algorithms and not run the cameras all the time. Even right now I am showing that the power consumption is around .2kw/h which is a bit much to add anything into.
With the current consumption it looks like I need to have some better power management. Something I can change on the fly or be intelligent about when to be on/off.
Here is a list of final items pulled together before launching.
We had to get the rear seat installed. You know. So that the passenger wont fall out? There were some guide holes that we tried to use and then realized that it was not going to fit and had to move the seat around. Luckily that landed on a tapped plate which Greg insightfully set the front leg on it with a new plate and welded it in place.
We didn’t make it out on time. Obviously because I got home at 2am and didn’t want to drive this beast at that speed.
The schedule manager Mariah insisted that we could get to Vegas in 4 hours. However she never went with a trail truck.
The first leg of the trip was uneventful. The truck was operating gracefully. The sound on the road
K5 Blazer Bench Seat Install
This is simple enough. But it’s worth calling out individually. If you do deep work with these binaries then you will start to mess with cmake. It’s a bit tough to build binaries.
apt-get install cmake
The easiest way to install dlib is to install it with the bundled version with pip.
It may end up that you will need to compile dlib. It depends on how deep you are going into the framework.
From Wiki:
Biometrics is the technical term for body measurements and calculations. It refers to metrics related to human characteristics. Biometrics authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control
Let the conspiracy theories abound. Actually most of the worries before are no longer theories. The capabilities of the biometric tools now are such that the human mind may no longer be the master of the visual recognition spectrum. Machines are getting so fast and the collective store of algorithms are to the point that we can use out of the box software and some cobbling together to get pretty impressive results.
USB HID Relay
I am starting off with this hardware:
KNACRO 4-Channel 12V USB Control Switch Relay Module
This was fairly easy but not where I wanted to be. I found a library that did a ton of things for me.
Thank you to @darrylb123 for https://github.com/darrylb123/usbrelay
There was a python contribution but it broke the build. I spent a few hours trying to get it to build and gave up and just smashed the ugly.
How do you control your new custom Linux powered car computer? With a touch screen monitor obviously. And maybe a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
I would like this to feel like I am using a Steampunk hacker version of a Tesla.
<a href="https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093773_icon-helios-is-gorgeous-tesla-powered-electric-streamliner-concept" target="_blank">Tesla Streamliner Concept</a>
Well maybe not all that.
Maybe more like this:
Race Truck Dash
I started a similar project about 6 years ago on another vehicle. I wasn’t able to get a monitor installed on that vehicle in the center and felt like it would be obstructive. Instead I put in a navigation system that was about 11" and placed it in front of the passenger. Since then Tesla Motors came out and made their entire center console a touch screen. Now I realize I can be obnoxious in the center of my console for no good reason and people will dig it.
One of my bigger worries is working with peripherals. I needed to find a camera and I felt like that was going to be easy enough. The relay controller will hit the actuators running the door locks.
Most things inside a car take a decent amount of power to actuate or power them. The car is limited to 12V DC and your other measurements are amps and watts. Most wiring coming from a computer are rated for very very low current. This is because those are only carrying signal. With the exception of your charging and some power over wire like USB and Ethernet.