The electronic systems in modern vehicles provide us with a huge amount of information about their overall condition, and about those points that require immediate attention. But many enthusiasts have decided to go beyond diagnostics and create something different. One of those enthusiasts is Andrew Rossignol, who just shared the code of CAN Joystick, a project that transforms the hybrid Cadillac ELR into a racing simulator.
Hacking cars is nothing new, and with each generation of electric vehicles that hits the market, an army of enthusiasts emerges willing to know, study, and manipulate their systems. Now, this presents a classic problem: if the hacker's intentions are good, we will learn a lot from that vehicle, but if they have malicious goals, it could cause great harm.
Of course, manufacturers do everything possible to reinforce the security of their cars, however, the truth is they already deliver a huge amount of data on their own. What can we do with them? How does turning a Cadillac ELR into a simulator sound?
The CAN Joystick Project
That's possible thanks to CAN Joystick, a project by Andrew Rossignol. In essence, what he did was build an adapter that takes advantage of both OBD ports on the Cadillac ELR (though technically it only needs one) and reads the state of its controls. After determining each of its values, Andrew used uinput on Linux to turn them into virtual devices that send commands to simulators of all kinds, from Speed Dreams to SuperTuxKart. He also had to apply a bit of reverse engineering to identify certain controls on the CAN bus (for example, those on the steering wheel), which took him about thirty minutes.
https://old.neoteo.com/como-jugar-mario-kart-64-usando-un-coche/
The Experience and Limitations
The rest is a matter of installing a pico projector (or a more powerful option), placing the canvas, calibrating the image, and starting to play. Enjoying a simulator with the comfort provided by a Cadillac ELR is probably one of the most positive points of the project, but it is not free of limitations.
Andrew highlights that there is no force feedback, and that filling the windshield with the projection image is complicated (a virtual helmet would be great here). Personally, I will add latency and sensitivity details, nothing that code optimization cannot fix. If you have a Cadillac ELR in your garage, what are you waiting for?
Official site: Click here
Source: Hackaday
https://old.neoteo.com/el-mecanico-rebelde-que-revive-coches-tesla
