Zero standby power remote control system using light power transmission

All commercial remotely controllable home appliances consume electric power while in standby mode waiting for a remote signal. This paper presents a new remote control system that consumes absolute zero power in standby mode. In this system, the home appliance is physically disconnected from the AC power line by a latch-type power relay in standby mode. When a laser beam is emitted from a remote controller to turn on the home appliance, the photovoltaic array mounted on the home appliance receives and accumulates the light energy in a storage capacitor. An autonomous connection circuit is devised and used to separate the storage capacitor from the power relay to prevent discharge during the light energy accumulation stage. When the proposed remote control system is implemented on a 190 W commercial television, use of a 15 mW infrared (830 nm) laser light for 620 ms turns it on at a distance of 2 m in a completely dark room. It can then be turned off using commercial remote controller¹.