Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

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Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Dozer789 » Fri May 08, 2015 11:24 am

Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand!


About half a year ago my brother showed me the TV show called Knight Rider. After seeing the first episode, I knew I had to have a car like that. I did a little research, and realized that other people had actually made some replicas, and I figured it had to be possible.
I was originally going to just use an 82 Trans Am, like the one from the show. After thinking about it, and talking to some people I knew, I thought about maybe using a newer 3rd gen Trans Am. Like a 92 or something. I then did some research, and thought about maybe using a 4th gen, 96 Trans Am. I scrapped that idea, after seeing how bubbly the back bumper was.

After about 1 month of not doing much designing, I saw a Corvette in town, and thought it was a 3rd gen Trans Am. My friend told me it was a Corvette, so I did some research into that. Realizing that it was a fast sports car, and that it would have a powerful engine that would replicate KITT, I decided that's what I would use. That once again sparked my designing, which was when I got a lot of the main designing done. After about a month, I decided against a Corvette for a couple reasons. For one, it had a fiberglass shell. Since this car will possibly be the main car that I drive, I want to make sure that if I get in an accident that I don't get seriously injured or killed.
Another reason was that it only had 2 front seats... No back ones. Seeing as how KITT had more seats, and I plan on taking more than just 1 other person with me, I decided that it was not the best idea to use the corvette.

I then was stuck with either a 3rd gen, or a 4th gen Trans Am. I once again did more research on cars. This time, I hit the jackpot! After viewing a picture on a Knight Rider forum, I knew that was what KITT looked like. That car, was a photoshopped 2010 Camaro with a redone nose. I'll add the picture as an attachment.

After I settled on what car I would use, I then focused on designing it, instead of jumping between cars.

The main thing that I was doing with it, was making the computer as close to KITT's as I could. I have been programming for about 3 years, so I figured I should try to do what nobody has ever done before; make a high tech computer as closely resembling KITT's as I can. Since I love technology, I figured I should make my car as high tech as I can, to resemble what KITT would have looked like if he had today's technology.

While my car will not have some of the features KITT had, like a AI, or Indestructible Shell, I can make it very close to what KITT had, along with adding some new features.

One feature that I plan on adding that the Two Thousand didn't have, but the Three Thousand did have, is a Heads Up Display. I'm not totally sure how I'm going to set this up, but I'm planning on having some of the essentials, like Speed, RPM, Fuel, and some other information on it.

KITT's dash is another area I'm planning on changing. His was an array of LED's, and a lot of other cool stuff. While that was high tech back then, it is somewhat outdated now. What I plan on doing is making the dash the way KITT would have had it if he had the same technology we have now; a fully digital dash. I'm not sure if I want a more flat dash like most cars have, or if I want it somewhat wrapped around like KITT had. I'm probably going with a dash that is more wrapped around then flat. Let me know your thoughts on that.

Another cool feature that KI3T had, was undercarriage lighting. I'm planning on putting RGB LED's underneath it, so you can change it to whatever color you want. Something else I'm thinking of adding, is putting LED's inside of the where the hubcaps are. That way you could get a cool glow, with a little bit of strobe effect.
While it wouldn't be legal to have the LED's on while driving on the road, it would be a cool effect for car shows, and just driving around when you are not on the road.

Something that was ionic to KITT, was his red scanner. I'm working on testing and developing an idea I have. Instead of it only being able to be red, I'm going to see if I can use RGB LED's to make it multicolored. I'm not sure if I can do that, without it looking like garbage, but it's worth a try at least.

Another thing KITT had was side pods by his steering wheel. I'm not sure how I will do this, but I'm planning on doing something that will look like that. I'm thinking about maybe building it into the the car, instead of it sticking out.

Some other things that aren't computer related are possibly a grappling hook and a winch. I'm not sure I'll have space for this, but if I did, it would be handy for pulling people out of ditches and stuff.
KITT had a fire extinguisher, which could be used to put out small fires. I don't know if I'll add this or not, because I don't think it would be used that much. I also might put a water pump in, so that you can hook up a water source and be able to fire water for a fairly long distance. Once again, I'm not sure how much space I will have, or if it would be very useful.
Another feature KITT had, was called High Traction Drop Downs. That would allow him to raise his chassis up when driving offroad. I probably won't be doing much offroad driving, but it would be a cool feature to add. The big drawback, is it would cost over $1,000.
KITT also had a medical scanner which would allow him to scan the vitals of anyone in the car. I plan on adding a heartbeat and blood pressure monitor. There might be a little bit more that I haven't thought about that I could add, so I'm going to look into it a bit more, and hopefully will be able to add some more.
Surveillance mode is another feature that KITT had that I will hopefully be able to add. I'm planning on having about 6 cameras running at all times when KITT is in surveillance mode. They will all be written to a few harddrives at least 10 TB. (Once again, that will be somewhat expensive)
Something that KITT didn't have that I want to add, is a fingerprint scanner on the door handles. That way if I go up to the car, and I put my fingers on the door handle, it will then auto unlock for me. Something that could be a problem is that most fingerprint scanners stop working if you damage for fingerprint at all. I will possibly lower the sensitivity a little bit more than most, along with (hopefully) calibrating it every time that I use it. That way it should hopefully be able to work every time that I use it.
Another thing I'm planning on adding is automatic doors, trunk, and hood. That way when my phone or smartwatch is connected to my car, I can just tap a button, and it will automatically open them.
I also plan on adding a regular printer, that will be able to print stuff off of my computer, and a 3d printer. That way if I need something real quick, I can draw it up on my computer and print it in less than 10 minutes.

I'm going to add a few other features, but those are most of the main ones. Now for more of the main part, the computer.

I plan on having a smartwatch connect via bluetooth to my phone, which will then be able to connect via bluetooth to my car. That way I can use voice recognition, and just say to my watch, something like “Hey KITT, unlock the doors”, and with around a 3 second delay, I will be able to have the doors unlocked.
Since my smartwatch won't be able to use voice recognition to figure out what I said, it will send the audio file to my phone, which will send it to my computer, which will then figure out what it said. I'm not totally sure that is the best way to do it, and might change it some later on, but that is what I'm planning on doing.
It will also have some buttons I can tap on. I'm still figuring out what will be the most useful to have available on your wrist. Let me know if you have any ideas for what I should do.

The next thing in line, is my phone. This is will be able to do a lot more. I'm currently working on learning the android SDK, so that I can make an application for it to connect via bluetooth to my computer.
I plan on having a main screen, that will have different buttons, to access the different parts of the car. For example, one will open up a screen that I can change KITT's scanner setting. Another will allow me to unlock all the doors. Once again, let me know if you have any ideas for this.

Now the main part of the car is the computer. This is where KITT is really going to come to life. I'm planning on building my own linux operating system, so that when my car starts up, my whole program will start up. If anyone here knows anything about that, let me know. I can use all the help I can get for this!
Probably the largest feature KITT will have, is around 10k voice commands. I'm not sure how many I will have, but I plan on having enough, so that I can use voice commands for pretty much everything. Something I also plan on adding, is a Diagnostics screen. This is probably going to be one of, if not the hardest thing to add. It is going to be interconnected with everything on the car, so that if anything fails, it will be able to detect it, and hopefully even be able to figure out the related causes of it failing. I'm not totally sure how much of this I can do by myself, but I'm hoping that it can still be done. If I can do it, I'm hoping to make it so that I have it connected up to everything, in order to run a complete diagnostics.

Another large feature that KITT will have, is either a phone built in, and a clone of my SIM card, or make it so that I can hook up my own phone, and then have access to all the text messages, phone calls, and everything else. That way I can just tell KITT to send a message to someone, and I don't have to use the phone while I'm driving. For example, I can say something like “Hey KITT, Tell Dad I'll be home early” and it will send a text to whoever is in my contact list as “Dad”.

I also plan on adding several safety features, like blind spot monotiroing, which is on a lot of the newer cars available. My brother has a new car that has that feature, and it is extremely helpful. Another thing that I might add is something that will detect if you close your eyes for more than 10 seconds or so. If you do, then it will either brake for you, or possibly just play a sound to wake you up.

Something else that I might add, is remote driving. The main reason I won't do that, is because someone could hack into my car, and then gain control of it. If I do add it, either I will make this car show only, or else make it so that is has to get hard connected to run. Meaning that I will manually have to plug in a cable to use it, or else push a button that will run a servo motor and plug it in. While that wouldn't be completely hacker proof, it would make it a lot harder to be hacked.

Something that I touched on a little before, was cameras. I plan on adding around 6 of them. I might not do that many, but what I'm thinking is a backup, and forward, two external facing ones for each side, and then two inside the car; one recording the front, and one recording the back. I'm not sure if I will have them always recording, or just when in surveillance mode. I will have the front one always going when I'm driving, and if someone pulls the door handle, I'm planning on having it start recording.

There is a little bit more smaller stuff that I'm not real sure about, that if I do or don't add, it won't change the programming much.
A few things would include a first aid kit, that would be around a 3x5x5. That way it could contain most of the essentials, and not be overloaded.
I also plan on adding a range finder to the front, so that it can display on the dash and the HUD how far behind the front vehicle I am. I'm also thinking on adding one to the back.
Another cool thing that will be a good safety feature, is I will set it up, so that as long as my car is within range of a cell tower, I will be able to track it. That way if someone ever breaches my security and steals my car, I can still track it down.

Something else that I thought of not long ago, was give KITT the tools to be able to hack any wifi around. That way I can be anywhere and just hack into any wireless network I find. I'm not sure if I'll do this, because hacking wifi is illegal, but it would be cool to be able to show people it in action.

That brings me to my final point... Security. That will be the cars biggest vulnerability. I don't know how I will be taking care of this, so if anyone has any ideas for how it could be done, let me know.

That is pretty much all the information about my car. If you have any ideas for what could be done to make it better, or would like to help at all, just let me know.

Thanks, Steve.

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Knight Racer » Tue May 12, 2015 3:23 pm

I hope you can hire a team of Knight Industries Technicians to create your dream car for you. In the late 90's I had the same idea. My friend could handle all the mechanical parts of souping up the car such as engine, nitro, hydraulics, etc. and I would handle to computer part of the car. This would all go into a 98 Trans Am.

I do remember around the late 90's, reading a Maxim Magazine (yes, there are articles) and there was one that caught my attention of a computerized dash board screen system. You had an entire screen for the dash that could be reassigned meters, gauges, displays from left to right. I never saw a prototype for it but

When you mentioned kitt not having a finger print analyzer, I thought you weren't watching knight rider. there were several episodes where kitt had locked out intruders from entering the car. One was in season 1 episode 4, Good Day At White Rock:

http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww28 ... lgx2dr.jpg

The other was in season 3 Knight In Disgrace:

http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww28 ... rrew76.jpg

He even had one on his fuel tank cover under the license plate in Season 1 No big thing. That might prevent anyone from trying to pour sugar in your gas tank.

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Dozer789 » Wed May 13, 2015 6:38 pm

The problem I have, is I can't afford to hire a team of Knight Industries Technicians to make KITT... That is why I need all the help from the community that I can get.

As far as the fingerprint scanners go, I was thinking that since he has all those scanners, and an AI, he could 'tell' who opened the door. Am I correct?

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Knight Racer » Thu May 14, 2015 9:25 am

Perhaps the fingerprint scanner underneath the handle was intended in case the Knight Industries Two Thousand c.p.u were deactivated or corrupted/hacked and someone needed to gain access to the Knight 2000 interior.

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Dozer789 » Thu May 14, 2015 6:08 pm

You are probably right. One thing I thought of while reading your reply, was that it would possibly be good for me to have the locks work even if the main computer dies. That way, if my car DID get hacked, or if my computer just crashed, I would still have a backup working to be able to enter.

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by jup » Wed May 20, 2015 9:20 am

And don't go ruling out an AI for your car. These days, the classic science fiction ideas are becoming reality, left and right. Why, I just watched an interactive bot video ( https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jibo ... r-the-home ) that promises a great leap in interactive software. Why, the video even claims the bot looks at you and recognizes whom you are and is capable of sustaining two way communications...probably on specific categories.

Plus, self driving cars are not only on the horizon, they are now in sight. (Not that the Google SmartCar's gigantic dish eye thing looks stylish in any way. Perhaps, the MicroSoft version will sport something more stealthy?)

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Dozer789 » Fri May 29, 2015 5:52 pm

You do have a point there jup, but we have a problem. That is trying to connect the "AI" along with a self-driving car. Trying to do that, is like trying to put a dump bed on the back of a corvette. Am I right?

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by jup » Sat May 30, 2015 3:38 am

Actually, I do believe that Knight Rider had the answer, all along. Kitt was the AI. And, the AI resided inside a small black box that was independent of the Two Thousand. The Two Thousand may have taken instructions from Kitt. But, I do believe that the Knight Industries Two Thousand was it's own computer. Hence, as the show illustrated, the car could be driven remotely with Kitt removed. There's also evidence that the semi had it's own self driving ability. Yet, no evidence at all that the semi had a personality.

I've always believed that the best computing approach is to have dedicated computers that handle one task. Unlike Windows, where one computer handles all the tasks. And, I've long held the theory that the Knight Two Thousand operated in a similar way. Different CPU's for different tasks. That's not to say that they don't all talk to each other.
But, it certainly gives great support to the episodes where KITT was under attack from hacker activities. Like how the genius gained access remotely to the Two Thousand and Kitt couldn't figure out how. Both were controlling the car. But, Kitt, the AI, resisted and had to be physically removed so the car only had one input source.

And, that's how I think the info-structure of a real version should work, as well. One computer for the AI personality. Another for the self driving computer. A third to regulate engine activities. Even a fourth for all the 'distractions'. (Things that people typically use PC's for. Like surfing the web or playing games and such.) While the computers might talk to each other, (for example, telling the AI where to drive to should have it talk to the auto pilot on destination and let the driver use GPS from that point. And the distractions computer should be isolated, period. If Bad_Trojan.virus comes in from Website X, then your smart car doesn't turn into Killer Kitt 2.0, simply because your anti-virus was out of date.) they shouldn't be one in the same.

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Re: Introducing the Krupp Industries Ten Thousand

Post by Dozer789 » Thu Jun 25, 2015 2:06 pm

I really like what you are saying jup. I only have a slight problem... I have no where near enough knowledge to be able to make this, and I don't know where to find anyone who would want to help me develop this. As far as I know, most replica makers are 40+, and most programmers are fairly young. Making it like you said would be the best way to do it, but I'm guessing it would be at least 3 times as hard to do.

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