College Senior Turns His Honda Civic Into a Self-Driving Car Using Free Hardware, Software (technologyreview.com)

holy_calamity writes: University of Nebraska student Brevan Jorgenson swapped the rear-view mirror in his 2016 Honda Civic for a home-built device called a Neo, which can steer the vehicle and follow traffic on the highway. Jorgenson used hardware designs and open-source software released by Comma, a self-driving car startup that decided to give away its technology for free last year after receiving a letter asking questions about its functionality from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Jorgenson is just one person in a new hacker community trying to upgrade their cars using Comma's technology. "A Neo is built from a OnePlus 3 smartphone equipped with Comma's now-free Openpilot software, a circuit board that connects the device to the car's electronics, and a 3-D-printed case," reports MIT Technology Review. The report notes that Neodriven, a startup based in Los Angeles, has recently started selling a pre-built Neo device that works with Comma's Openpilot software, but it costs $1,495.

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Next headline

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Next headline: College Student Arrested For Building Autonomous Car That Hit Something

The story of Geohot's autopilot

[GuB-42]

Geohot, a renowned hacker decided to try making a self driving car. It kinda worked, but it is, well, a hack.
However, when regulators came over and asked him to prove that it was actually safe enough for public roads, he backed down and that's how we got Comma.ai free.

I've nothing against Geohot and Comma.ai, quite the opposite in fact, they are great hackers, in the positive sense. However, when lives are on the line, being clever is not enough, we also need the boring and expensive work to make sure it is safe.

Re:The story of Geohot's autopilot

[amiga3D]

That's deaths per mile not accidents. I remember how people used to die in minor accidents when I was a child. Even a 35mph accident was serious when cars had metal dashes and no seat belts. The hood on cars in the 50s were made of heavy steel and would not bend. In a front end collision it would often break loose and come straight back decapitating the people in the front seat. Now they crumple. In the last few decades it's gotten to the point where most accidents don't even require first aid. Cars are vastly safer. Deaths per mile is down due to that more than anything. Tires are safer, airbags, handling is much better. Most deaths happen at speed now, often excessive. One thing autonomous cars shouldn't be doing is speeding. Accidents per mile is much higher than deaths per mile.

Re:The story of Geohot's autopilot

[amiga3D]

I notice that many people range from inattentive to reckless. Today I went through a school zone during pick-up time and was driving about 30-35 in a 30 zone, and got my doors blown off by a Yukon that did a quick lane change immediately after passing me due to another "slow" car observing the speed limit. Yes, I know most drivers aren't reckless idiots and it just seems that way but enough are that I believe computer control would reduce accidents and especially severity of those accidents.

Another BS article.

[thesupraman]

This software just replaced LKAS and ACC in Hondas, both features you can get as standard anyway.
basically steering lane control in cruise mode, and adaptive cruise so you dont run in to the back of the car in front.

That is far FAR from a 'self driving car', not even similar. The system cannot even operate below 18mph/25mph depending on model.

Still, new media and all, who CARES if any facts are checked, its all about the HYPE!

The kids are alright

[PopeRatzo]

Young people today are impressive. When I was a senior in college, I was turning milk bottles into bongs.

They were sweet bongs, though.

When I got to grad school, that all changed because I was suddenly surrounded by people smarter than me and I had to actually work. But those first seven years of college were a lot of fun.

Surprising

[manu0601]

It is pleasantly surprising that Honda lets third parties connect to the vehicle control electronics. I would have expected fiercely guarded proprietary systems...

Re:Surprising

[dknj]

Nope, CANBUS is an open protocol, if you have a real CANBUS reader (not one of those $13 ELM junk) you can read every piece of data coming across the bus. A honda civic is the cheapest car you can buy and when I say cheap this also means they went cheap on security too. Newer e.g. Audi's and Mercedes' have since separated critical components to a secondary bus (which you can access via the ECM under the hood but its no longer as simple as plugging into the ODB2 port).

My question is how is steering done? If I had to take a guess, they are manipulating individual brake controllers via the ABS system but that won't allow the car to make a 90 degree left or right turn (efficiently). And a Honda Civic is DEFINITELY not steering by wire yet (or maybe it is?). Regardless of the method used, it's still fucking scary to think someone on the road next to you could be using one of these instant-death devices. Why do I call it that?

A year ago I got the bright idea to start hacking lane assist into my mid-2000s vehicle. My wife's car has it and I was driving 45 minutes one way to work. I wanted an excuse to skype while driving, to be honest. Found the CANBUS is wide open and for $600 I could get a device that would dump out and write to the CANBUS. Started dumping data as I drove and eventually isolated the individual brake commands. Now, I never got around to sending brake commands because of a very scary article published right here on Slashdot. It was about liability of self-driving cars. Immediately I had a thought of my system spazzing out and locking up my rear brakes while doing highway speeds. Not wanting to risk my cushy lifestyle I put the raspberry pi and CANBUS writer on a shelf and started looking into the Infiniti Q50 (don't buy a pre-2015 model folks, the steering wheel is dead to the world and the car wanders on its own).

Shame on comma.ai for releasing that kit, I'm actually even more scared to drive than I used to be and it's only going to get worse as more entrepreneurial car-hackers hop onto the road.

-dk

3D printed case is the key

[thesjaakspoiler]

Look at all those Tesla owners without a 3D printed case

Cars are becoming more automatic anyway

[flightmaker]

Two days ago I was at a launch party for the 2017 Honda Civic. There was a 1st generation Civic from 1978, my own 1991 4th generation Civic, and several subsequent generation Civics, all in the Honda showroom arrayed around the new model.

What worries me is that so much on the new model has gone automatic. It's got a radar set in the front bumper to measure distance to the vehicle in front. It can be set to automatically speed control itself to maintain safe distance from the vehicle in front. It's got blind spot warning devices. It's got an automatic parking brake. It's got a camera that it's claimed is able to read and interpret road signs for itself so that the car knows what the speed limit is, and can be set to automatically keep its speed down to the limit.

It worries me as a driver that so much safety related functionality is being integrated into new cars that drivers of cars are going to be dangerously de-skilled. If, for example, a student driver learned to drive and passed their driving test in a 2017 manual transmission Civic, even though qualified they would have little of the skills needed to drive a 1991 Civic or any other car produced over, say, the subsequent 20 years. Specifically would they for example be able to perform a hill start, which is part of the British driving test and as well as the usual observations before moving off requires the ability to operate a manual hand brake simultaneously with the clutch and gas pedal? I doubt it.