ZigBee based Dynamic Control Scheme for Multiple Legacy IR Controllable Digital Consumer Devices

A URC (universal remote control) unit is a device for controlling many different CE (consumer electronics) devices with a single one. To control the various CE devices based on IR (infrared) control signal, the URC unit has to have many preprogrammed control codes for controlling them because they are controlled with many different types of IR profile stated with lead code, carrier frequency, duty cycle, duration and so forth. In this paper, we propose a dynamic control scheme for multiple legacy IR controllable digital CE devices based on IEEE802.15.4, especially ZigBee protocol. The proposed scheme uses a URC unit using ZigBee based wireless network technique, WPAN (wireless personal area network), and a `Z2IR (ZigBee to IR)´ conversion module, converted a control message transferred through ZigBee network into IR typed control signal. In this scheme, we can configure controllable CE devices based on user´s mobility and minimize power consumption based on ZigBee ON/OFF control technique using multiple level timers.