ANN ARBOR, Mich. — What if a battery could be more than a power supply?

This question inspired researchers Kang Shin and Liang He to create Battery Sleuth, an anti-car-theft device that uses a vehicle’s battery to control access.

Battery Sleuth is the researchers’ answer to what Shin describes as an “arms race” of vehicle security between automakers and hackers. The war is primarily being fought on two fronts — the vehicle’s wireless communication system and its internal communication system.

Intended to be “disruptive,” Battery Sleuth bypasses those systems entirely, Shin said.

There are two parts to the device, one that attaches to a car’s battery and the other that plugs into its auxiliary power outlet, the cigarette lighter. Using the electrical wiring to communicate, the device turns the vehicle’s battery into both a sensor and a controller, allowing the vehicle to start only if the correct PIN is input into the keypad, Shin said.

Shin and He conduct research into battery management. He said that the idea came about when he was doing postdoctoral work under Shin at the University of Michigan in 2017. He now works out of the University of Colorado Denver but has continued to partner with Shin on the project.

Battery Sleuth arrives on the battlefield of modern vehicle security, a scene that saw a wave of Hyundai and Kia thefts last year linked to a hacking strategy being spread on social media. To evade technology-armed hackers, Shin and He targeted a low-tech vehicle feature — the electrical system.

In default mode, the battery delivers enough power for basic vehicle systems, including lights and electronics. To start the vehicle, the device measures fluctuations in electricity to verify the driver and only powers the starter if the correct sequence is detected.

It essentially acts as “second-factor authentication,” He said.

As a backup measure, device tampering triggers Battery Sleuth’s alarm. In the future, the device could send a message to the vehicle owner or even trigger the car’s built-in alarm, Shin and He said.

Retired New York Police Department officer Tom Burke told Automotive News that the largest threat to vehicle security today are key fobs accidentally left in a car by an owner. Burke, who is a member of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators, has spent much of his career looking into car theft. Battery Sleuth could prevent the low-skill thefts that occur from this mistake, he said.

“The amateur car thief will see that device and move onto another car,” Burke said.

As for more advanced car thefts, Burke cautioned that he has seen thieves outsmart many security devices. Skilled thieves are “able to turn off the car alarm quicker than an owner who hit the panic button by mistake,” he said.

Overall, the best method for securing a vehicle is a “multilayer” approach, Burke said. Sometimes this includes security systems but also “common sense measures” such as parking in well-lit areas and locking your vehicle. 

Shin and He believe their technology could transform the landscape of vehicle security.

They see two possible futures for Battery Sleuth — either an aftermarket product or a vehicle feature offered in partnership with an automaker. Shin and He have been granted two U.S. patents for the device, one for controlling battery output to prevent theft and the other for an anti-theft vehicle immobilizer using batteries.

He said the former option would likely result in the product debuting essentially as it exists now. With support from an automaker, however, the invention could become much more.

Battery Sleuth could control any vehicle systems that use electricity, He and Shin said. For example, the keypad could be installed in a vehicle’s door and used to control entrance. In this scenario, the keypad could also be replaced by any number of sensors, from a biometric fingerprint scanner to an employee ID-badge reader.

“This will be a solution to just get rid of keys,” He said.

Shin and He will now be getting out of the lab and into vehicles for testing at the University of Michigan’s MCity track.

Armed with a $1.2 million National Science Foundation grant, the research team will be testing the endurance and reliability of Battery Sleuth, while also ensuring it does not interfere with normal vehicle systems.

The team will also tackle a number of questions, such as what happens if an owner needs to take their car to a repair shop or if a vehicle has multiple users, such as a rental car, or what happens if someone forgets their PIN.

“Right now, you would have to walk home if you forgot the PIN,” Shin said. “We have to be careful.”

More staff will be joining the team this fall to assist in the testing of Battery Sleuth and to help answer those questions. At the end of the three-year project, Shin and He hope to have a commercially viable prototype.