On-board Pc | CES 2010 Webcast

Car PC – Onboard Car Computer Is Eyes, Ears And Brains Of Your Auto

November 24th, 2009 |

MTC-600 Onboard Car Computer

Maxtrack, a Brazilian company, will be showing their MTC-600 on-board car computer at CES 2010. This is a pretty impressive piece of equipment that can handle just about everything in your car.

Several devices are integrated into the system such as keyboard, message panels, passenger counters (yes, passenger counters), billing equipment, cameras (there are four cameras), sensors, actuators, among others. It will gather all the information about your car and store it. Your car will know if it’s running or not, what direction and speed it’s going and whether it’s in an open area or not. Most of that can be handled by a good GPS system, but this car computer does a bit more.

Sensors placed throughout the automobile will monitor and take specified actions for just about any situation it encounters, from controlling the interior temperature and ambiance to identifying and recording information from any peripheral you want to hook up to it. It can even tell you about your bad driving habits that can cause extra wear on the automobile.

And, of course, it can all be done through voice commands, as well. The digital audio component stores voice commands, environment sound with music equalization in up to eight frequency ranges, volume control, among others.

The four cameras can be programmed to react to different events like start a recording when the driver slams on the brakes. So not only do you get to watch as you slide your car through the garage door after locking the wheels up on an icy driveway in person, but you get to enjoy it with the rest of the family over and over again. Won’t that be fun?

Here are the technical specs from the MaxTrack website:

Technical specifications

• DSP525 MHz, 16 MB SDRAM, 8 MB Flash
• Highly sensitive GPS with onboard gyroscope
• Accelerometer
• Integrated Video System (4 cameras)
• Audio Codec AC97
• Transceiver ISM Band 868/900MHz
• GSM/GPRS EDGE(optional) 850/900/1800/1900MHz communication system
• Removable battery up to 2GB card slot (card not included)
• Connection interfaces: two RS232, two RS485 and one CAN 2.0 bus
• Rechargeable Li-Polimer 3,6V/1200mA internal battery
• 8 optocoupled digital inputs
• 8 outputs with contact and/or disconnection identification
• 9 to 40 VDC
• Weight: 475g
• Size: 173mm (6.8”)(depth) x 166mm (6.5”)(width) x 45mm (1.8”)(height)

At less than 2” tall, this baby could be installed just about anyplace in the vehicle. I would imagine it could also be adapted for motorcycles (Imagine Dennis Hopper’s “Billy” riding a Harley that’s smarter than he is).