Monday, January 7, 2019

Making my 2018 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Autonomous!

2018 Autonomous Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Musings

  • This page will be updating as I progress with this install and use. 
  • 1/7/19: Took 2 days USPS Priority from California to get my EON and Panda. Unboxing and starting this blog. Made a post in the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Facebook group ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/527435107437732/ ). Loaded OpenPilot into the EON, configured for Pacifica using Drew's github stuff....
  • 1/15/19: Getting errors related to the Panda not communicating correctly and giving me a "steering temporarily disabled" message. I THINK what needs to be done is to start the van, then plug the EON in. Also, it likes to hug either side of the lanes sometimes, so be careful in trusting it 100%! 


So in various forums and Facebook groups, I stumbled across a nifty open source "driving agent".

It's called Open Pilot and you can see how it generally works here: 


Thanks to a fellow owner, Sameer Fazli, and his encouragement, I decided to try this out on my minivan. It basically gives you Level 2 autonomy by linking the lane departure system and the active cruise control system in the Pacifica.  You'll need to order an EON and White Panda from: 

https://comma.ai/shop?ref=11 (this link helps Drew who is helping us develop for Pacifica)

It's a $600 venture so it is not cheap. I guess it's cheaper than a Tesla or Cadillac?

Then you need a modified Giraffe from Drew who is spearheading this.  The Giraffes on the Comma store will not work on your car. You can email Drew at drew@overt.org and he will mail you one, probably for free. Alternatively, he says that if youre good with electronics and soldering, you can make your own here. 

Im posting this blog just to help people get through the same issues I had.  

You'll have to do the following. If you don't, it plain wont work. If you're like me and anxious to just start plugging things in, you'll see that you've gotten a LaneAssist warning on your dash...  :D 

This webpage has a very detailed and pictured process on what to do from unboxing, to installing the proper OpenPilot software.  Keep in mind that the EON comes uncharged and likely is 0-1% battery. To continue you must charge it for a while until it is 35% or greater and have access to a WiFi connection: 


Took about 2 hours on an iPad charger to go from 0-35%...  but now it’s finally updating:




https://medium.com/@jfrux/comma-eon-initial-setup-with-openpilot-2b5ea58354a

Download Workbench: https://opc.ai/workbench

Then you need to follow this: 

https://github.com/adhintz/openpilot/wiki?fbclid=IwAR0r1_V8eeOpPlalVg2Kz-7IZl8gGkT8uQUmY4GDYagSA2Ks6OzoJsxxbu0

EON and your laptop needs to be on the same WiFi network. Cannot be a guest or 5G connection!




You'll need the following commands entered line by line (don't cut and paste):

It will then look something like this. Finish up and let it reboot... 



It will then finish up, reboot and take a while to "load openpilot". Once done, it will look like this:




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