PILOT Drive is a fully open source hardware & software vehicle headunit built with hackers in mind. This project started a few years ago when I grew unimpressed with the current radio/infotainment systems available as the UI didn’t seem clean or customizable, data collection was growing (Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, etc.), and it was all proprietary and not easily hackable. With PILOT Drive, I took a stab at making a system that fixed these issues.

This project is built fully in Python 3 + Vue 3, and intended for a beefy SBC like a Raspberry Pi 4. This was strategic as I felt both required the lowest barrier to entry. I really wanted it to be as easy as possible for even a novice programmer to step in and hack together their own version of PILOT Drive – or even contribute to the project as a whole!

While still in it’s infancy, PILOT Drive can:

• Play, display, and control audio from sources like Bluetooth

• Connect to the user’s car & display live data

• Show notifications from both Android & iOS devices

• Display connected backup cameras

On the horizon, I’m hoping to work towards offline navigation support via OpenStreetMap and [resource dependent] SDR support, to allow for all kinds of radio listening.

Pop over to the software or hardware PILOT Drive repositories to learn more! Please keep in mind this is a major work in progress, and at the time of writing I’ve been the only developer. This means lots of bugs are bound to come out of the woodwork, along with limited support for more diverse environments – so please be patient and lend a hand!