a network that goes anywhere

Introduction

If the newspaper stories and marketing materials from 5 years ago were to be believed, we would all by this point have small computers installed in our dashboards which were capable of everything from playing CDs to reading your email out loud to ordering your take out from the traffic jam on the way home (assuming, of course, that the navigation computer couldn't find its way around the traffic jam in the first place). Then again, reading too many issues of Popular Mechanics as a child has resulted in an insatiable lust for those flying cars we were supposed to have 10 years ago, but I digress. Insomnia and a fixation on mobile and wireless technology can produce some interesting inventions. For many years I have struggled with the idea of putting a computer in my car, but until recently I have not been able to find the right hardware combination with which to do it well. What follows is a description of my solution and a few ways to improve upon it.

History

I am not the first geek to think of something like this. Those props (as far as I know) go to the inventor of the MP3Mobile, VFD goodness and all. He later created a commercial version which was called empeg which was then sold to SonicBlue (formerly S3, who purchased Diamond, inventors of the Rio), and then later discontinued. These early MP3 car players quickly evolved into LCD, TFT, and touch-screen based devices mounted in various places in the cars of many geeks. I've seen many attached to the back side of sun visors, or crammed into a glove box and the hole where the head unit used to reside. With the advent of cheap consumer GPS devices such as the Earthmate and the eTrex people began adding navigation assistance to their setups. And then the car manufacturers woke up and began including purpose-built CD and DVD based navigation systems in a wide variety of cars, along with several aftermarket manufacturers and GPS makers. But none of these systems ever quite fulfilled the promise of ubiquitous vehicular computing. They were either clever ways to listen to or watch media, or perform navigation functions, or do performance optimization of your engine (with an OBD-I or II interface of some sort).

During all this, Microsoft announced the Auto PC, a companion to their Hand-held PC and Palm-sized PC concepts. Using WindowsCE running in a sort of head-unit sized computer, one was supposed to be able to interact via voice commands (this was 1998 or thereabouts, mind you) with the Auto PC to perform functions such as playing media, reading email, planning routes, and other such things. Clarion picked up on this concept and produced an Auto PC head unit, but it only languished on the market for a few years before Microsoft abandoned the concept in the aftermarket space all together. They moved on to the OEM space, and began with WindowsCE 3.0 to offer solutions for auto manufacturers themselves. They partnered with Siemens to put their software into the iDrive system introduced on the new 7 Series (when I find a cool hack for this, I'll let you know, but I don't know many hackers who drive 7 series cars, so..). Fiat also recently announced their intention to bring a CE based system to market, but the car is, as yet, unreleased.

The Concept

All these systems which have been invented over the past few years are very cool, but are not quite what I am looking for. I want a full computer system in my car, no holds barred. If I cannot sit in a parking lot and flip through the latest PowerPoint to show up in my inbox, the system just is not enough. Also, I am not the sort of person who likes being confined to an office all day, and have been known to often trade the office for a local park just to try to get some work done (and, being able to sit in the back of your Jeep with your laptop is definitely a plus). So I developed a set of requirements for my system:

1. Must have a full computer, PIII class or faster
2. Must have a large touch-screen display, but also a keyboard
3. Must be able to play media (mp3s mostly)
4. Must be able to run office and other business apps (at the time I was concerned about running Groove and some other things before they proved to be unreasonable on the resource front)
5. Must be able to perform navigation (preferably integrated with Outlook)
6. Must have an internet connection, preferably both GPRS/1xRTT/etc. based and 802.11 based
7. Must have a wireless network inside the vehicle (and perhaps outside) for remote control of the media system and sharing of the internet connection
8. Must be well-integrated into the vehicle. No stray wires, splices, or human interface devices. This should be as professional of an install as possible.
9. System should be powered off the vehicle's electrical system.

To that list I eventually added "Must be able to support a webcam and upload pictures to an internet site", but that is more for the cool factor than any reasonable, functional purpose. (although, as a testament to the power of "cool factors", the webcam has generated much more interest in the system than the myriad antennas or glowing lights)

The Hardware

So how did this system come together? Well, I had long ago found small enough pieces for the little stuff such as the networking equipment, USB hub, GPS unit, etc. Initially, I thought of removing the head unit and cutting a larger hole in the dash to support a TFT and touch-screen. However, even 1.5-2 DIN head units are too small for a reasonable screen (8" is about the top end for this sort of thing), and the placement of air ducts directly below the head unit spot made for a tricky install at best. I obviously (well, obvious to anyone who has lived in Texas for a while anyway) couldn't remove the air vents, so that solution was pretty much out from the beginning. What really got the ball rolling was finding the perfect PC device to anchor the whole thing.

Before the advent of the TabletPC, IBM released the TransNote, a kind of precursor to the TabletPC that put the digitizer behind your legal pad instead of the screen. The whole thing was packaged as a portfolio which folded out into a PC with a touchscreen on one side and the ThinkScribe (IBM-speak for a digitizer tablet with some memory and a serial port) on the other. Being a mobile computing addict, of course I had to have one, and this thing became my laptop and portfolio for a time. I eventually gave it up for a TabletPC however, and it sat unused, waiting to be used in some project.

One day (well, more approximately, one morning at about 3:00 AM) it dawned on me that the PC side of the transnote would be the perfect anchor for this system. Screwdriver in hand, I detached it from the portfolio and ThinkScribe and immediately placed it between the front seats. (okay, so there was the minor matter of having no cup holders afterwards, but such sacrifices are often necessary for the sake of innovation) A few pieces of double-sided foam tape later I had the beginnings of a suitable in-car computing system.

To the TransNote I added the following:

1. DLink 802.11 Access Point (chosen for the presence of a screw-on antenna connector)
2. Generic powered USB hub
3. DeLorme EarthMate GPS
4. DLink DBT-120 Bluetooth Adapter (for the use of GPRS phones)
5. Lucent Orinoco Gold 802.11b Wireless PCMCIA card
6. Sprint (Novatel Wireless) Merlin (for 1xRTT data service)
7. 300W power inverter
8. Sony Mini-plug to cassette tape adapter
9. Mag-mount 802.11 antenna (5 dBi)
10. Logitech USB QuickCam Pro 3000

The Vehicle

All of this went into a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Here are a couple of pictures of the car and the system:

Exterior:

Interior:

Installation

With the computer mounted between the seats, I needed to find a way to mount the rest of the system out of sight. Behind the area where the computer rests there is an arm rest/storage bin. Now, the storage bin I suppose was designed to be a repository for cassettes and CDs, but I am installing an MP3 player, what do I need that for? I removed the storage bin and placed the inverter and the power brick for the laptop in the space where the bin used to be. I ran a cord under the center console from the 12v power outlet to the inverter, and I ran an extension cord back under the console to the area under the passenger side dash board (under the glove compartment). Here I mounted the USB hub, its power adapter, and the power adapter for the 802.11 access point. All this was mounted out of the way, so someone sitting in the passenger seat would not be aware of the wiring and such.

With the hub in place, I mounted the webcam to a small stand, and taped the stand to the top of the passenger side dashboard. Next to the webcam I mounted the access point, and to the right of both I mounted the GPS unit. All of the cables were run under a piece of plastic moulding at the top of the dashboard, down a channel next to the door, and back under the dashboard to the power and hub. The ethernet cable and the USB cable from the hub were run to the laptop.

The cassette adapter posed the largest problem for a clean installation. There was no obvious pathway to hide the cable from the computer to the tape player, so I began trying to find one behind the dashboard. After removing several pieces of paneling, I finally was able to snake the cable up from the bottom of the dash to the top, and only a very small piece of cable is visible on the front of the radio.

The AirCard and Bluetooth adapters were added to the TransNote, and the 802.11 antenna was placed on the roof of the car (and the cable run down through a back door behind the front seats), and the installation was complete.

Software

With the hardware installed and functional, it was time to configure the system. The following software was installed to the TransNote:

• Microsoft Windows XP Tablet Edition
• Microsoft Office XP
• Microsoft MapPoint
• WinAmp
• NetStumbler
• Groove
• Booru WebCam (for taking pictures and uploading them to a server)
• Various drivers and utilities

Windows was configured for a demand-dial link through the AirCard and set up for Internet Connection Sharing to allow devices connected to the wireless network to access the internet. A plugin was added to WinAmp to allow remote control from a laptop or PocketPC (or other handheld device).

The biggest software challange was making the UI big enough to be able to be used with the touch screen. I found that the default icon and button sizes in Windows are just too small for my fingers on the touch screen. I put WinAmp into DoubleSize mode, and other than the playlist, everything was easy to use. To launch the applications, I added a QuickLaunch bar to the right side of the screen with "large icons" enabled to avoid the start menu all together. I also changed the default text and button size in Display Properties, but even with these settings, some applications present a challange to use.

Impressions

So what is it like driving around with a computer in your car? Well, distracting at times, but otherwise enjoyable. I quickly learned you really cannot interact with the device while driving. The lack of tactile feedback in the controls makes it difficult to use the device without looking at it, and looking at it requires taking your eyes off the road for too long. The navigation works well, but the map scrolls around based on your GPS coordinates, so actually using it to navigate requires little to no interaction. Obviously I did not even try typing up a document while driving or checking my email in traffic, but while parked somewhere these activities work fairly well. Typing more than a few lines is difficult, but that could likely be remedied by adding an external keyboard (Twiddler anyone?).

What sort of reactions do you get to a system like this? Curiosity initially, but the system was generally well-received. While the technology used is not necessarily the latest-and-greatest, people did not seem to care much. The touch screen and integration into the interior are really what generated the “oh, wow, cool!” reactions. I’ve had a number of people say something along the lines of “I tried this computer-in-the-car thing too, but I could never get it to work. If I had had this touch screen, it probably would have worked a lot better.” Looks like UI is yet again everything.

Here is a sample image from the webcam pointed out the windshield:

Next Steps

So what’s next for JeepNet? Here are a few ideas I am tossing around:

• Custom front-end for functions used most while moving
  Most Windows apps do not function well using a touchscreen while driving down the highway. They need bigger buttons. This one has them:
  
  
  This is simply a wrapper around the most common applications used the car, designed to enable these functions in a safer manner.
  
• Integration with Ham Radio
  I currently have a Yaesu FT-897 in the car, and it would be cool to add a Packet TNC or other data connection to the radio for doing things like Packet Clusters, APRS, or even IP over radio. Also, since it is a HF rig, it would be possible (though probably not very useful) to be able to recieve packets from K5UTD's DX cluster and then turn around and use that information to make some contacts.
  
• Integration with vehicle electronics
  It turns out that Chrysler put a 2-wire bus into the Grand Cherokee called CCD (Carrier Collision Detection). It is possible to get a device that will pull packets off this bus and dump them to a serial port. Using this control bus, the computer could concievably roll the windows up and down, turn the headlights on and off, etc. Also, an OBD II interface device would allow monitoring (and possibly tweaking) of the engine and other vehicle sensors.
  
• Real-time traffic integration
  I don't have a source for this data yet, but when I find one, I plan to write a plugin for MapPoint that will allow me to do navigation not just based on speed and convenience, but on traffic and other road conditions as well.

Conclusion

One day I hope to find a system like this in a car I buy, but until then, I plan to keep working on JeepNet and the systems that follow it. The enhancements are just too great to ignore. Especially on long trips, the media capacity and navigation assistance are just too valuable. This has been an immensely fun project and I would probably do it again for the fun of it.