Electric power steering assist to remote control

[SeanBlader]

I was thinking about how the power steering on the twins is servo-electric, and the thought came to me... You could probably wire that up to a remote control system. In addition, the throttle is drive by wire as well, so that could be setup to be computer controlled. Is the ABS system also accessible by software? In which case, you could, with a bit of wiring setup the entire car to run by remote. Of course this would be a bit more effective with an automatic... but it could be handy for a 6 speed if you left the car in first gear and then remotely controlled it into a parking spot. That is assuming you had some kind of visibility or safety so it didn't go crashing into things. That's all hypothetically speaking of course, but it'd be a neat trick to do on a car that's far less expensive than an E-Class.

[zooki]

I think the steering is electric assisted. I don't know if the motor is strong enough to turn the wheels by itself. What I wonder is if you could hack into someone's car through the Bluetooth OBD2 scan tool a lot of people leave plugged in their car when they have the Torque App?

[strat61caster]

I think Zooki is right, this car still requires mechanical input to steer, you cannot control the steering based solely on electronics.

This is what you're thinking of:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...emains-feature

But yes it seems sound that you could hack the drive by wire and eventually the steer by wire systems to mimic a driver input with code and subsequently a remote control.

[tnE30fan]

Looks like it's been done on an S2000:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuaswqvdxU"]EPS-1.mp4 - YouTube[/ame]

[M-17]

Originally Posted by SeanBlader

I was thinking about how the power steering on the twins is servo-electric, and the thought came to me... You could probably wire that up to a remote control system. In addition, the throttle is drive by wire as well, so that could be setup to be computer controlled. Is the ABS system also accessible by software? In which case, you could, with a bit of wiring setup the entire car to run by remote. Of course this would be a bit more effective with an automatic... but it could be handy for a 6 speed if you left the car in first gear and then remotely controlled it into a parking spot. That is assuming you had some kind of visibility or safety so it didn't go crashing into things. That's all hypothetically speaking of course, but it'd be a neat trick to do on a car that's far less expensive than an E-Class.

The thought of it reminds me of when one the drivers in the x-games rally cross used a handheld controller like a video game would. As @tnE30fan posted, it looks like it could be done.

[strat61caster]

Here's the technical info on that S2000, I'll admit I didn't look it over too closely. The system in the Toyobaru is fundamentally the same as what's on the S2000, the details will change but the same result should be obtainable (maybe not reasonably so).

http://modifry.com/freebies/eps.htm

I honestly didn't think that was possible, very cool hack. In order to turn into something other than a party trick there would have to be a significant amount of control systems worked out, basically you'd have to build a front end over what he's done in order to get controllable repeatable results out of the system, some heavy caster may help as well allowing the front end to track back to straight more aggressively (tires out humans but not circuits). And of course you risk overworking the system and causing a premature failure of the control unit or motors providing the assistance.

[tnE30fan]

Just to add, Modifry has a great reputation in the S2000 community as being responsive and helpful. He's obviously very smart as well, as evidenced by the products he's come out with for the S2000.

Anyway, all that to say that if someone wants to explore this concept further, they can always send him an email.