PSP Controlled Car
It was 9 months ago that you may have heard of PSP Home Control 1.0 a clever hack that involved using the PSP to control the DVD player, Tivo, and lighting of a house. Since then lots of progress has been made in the world of PSP hacking, and with the recent release of Lua Player .15, there is now an easy way to talk via wifi to other networked devices.
This has sparked new development ideas for integrating the PSP to allow it to control other devices. This time it is not a home A/V system that is being controlled, but a heavily modified, "ElecTrick" 1994 Honda Civic hachback .
The PSP can control several features of the car including, turning left/right, gas pedal, brakes, horn, opening and closing of the doors, headlights, volume and blinkers.
The car features an Electric motor developed by the guys at Metra Electronics. All of the wiring and several of the car's internal components are manufactured by Tsunami. At the heart of the car's control interface is the Aurora Multimedia WACI NX IP Based Control System. There is an Aurora IBZ-1040W 10.4" touchpanel mounted into the dash of the car along with an analog joystick for driving. The main interface for the car's controls was written in Macromedia Flash and can be taken for a 'test drive' here:
electric_honda_rev4
The car hosts 21 TV screens including 2 20" LCD's that hang from the back hatch of the car, fed content from 6 DVD players and 2 cameras which can be routed to any screen from the wifi interface.
Future enhancements include integrating video streaming hardware (Aurora's NX Stream) into the car to allow streaming video from the camera mounted on the front of the car to the PSP. This will allow us to see where the car is going when we're driving it.
Yes, you read that correctly, we are going to attempt to drive this car remotely from the PSP. As a safety precaution we have an override switch which will cut off control from the PSP and apply the brakes, just in case something does not go as planned. A video will be posted shortly after CES once we get the car to a nice empty parking lot to test it.
All of this will be on display at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in the Metra Booth (Booth #3406 in the North Hall), and the car will be traveling across the country to make it's stops at other car shows throughout the year. Bookmark this page for updated information including video clips, and schedule information for other shows the car will be appearing at.
