Project Portunus
A personal car hacking tool
Mission of the project
Project Portunus is a car hacking tool that allows the user to control certain car features from your phone. These features include locking and unlocking the car as well as gaining the location of the car itself. This eliminates the use of the car key as your phone is capable of doing everything the car remote can be used for and more. This idea was Allthenticate's, our sponsor, who wanted to incorporate all login information including vehicle access all from your phone. This would allow our phone to be used as a key for everything.
Project Features
CAN BUS Control
Connect to your car's communication bus to control your vehicle
Custom Hardware
Our custom printed circuit board works together with a Raspberry Pi Zero to send data to your computer
Real-time GPS Data
Project Portunus can monitor your cars location and relay it to the Allthenticate app wherever you are.
Phone Integration
Connect your phone to the Project Portunus module and add functionality to control the car
Step 1: CAN Bus
By connecting to the car's on-board-diagnostics (OBDII) port, we are able to read the codes that car's components use to communicate. Every Electronic sensor or actuator of the car send messages through the CAN bus. However, it is not easy to access on many cars.
Step 2: GPS module
The GPS module uploads real-time location data to your phone using the Global System for Mobile Communications technology. This data is stored in the cloud and the user can easily monitor it.
Step 3: PCB design
Using Autodesk EAGLE software our team has designed a custom board that sits on top of the Raspberry Pi Zero. The PCB hat has the necessary CAN bus transceivers, pinouts and power supply. Car's OBDII port will plug into the 9-pin connector on the board.
Step 4: App Integration
The Raspberry Pi Zero will be in communication with a Firebase Realtime Database, storing hierarchal data in the form of a JSON tree. From the Realtime Database, the mobile application will query data that is being stored and display it to the user in a useful format, allowing the user to organize vehicle data the way they desire.