Cost effective smart remote controller based on invisible IR-LED using image processing

We present a new cost effective smart remote controller using only a camera which may be installed or attached on digital appliances and infrared (IR) LED to control various electronic appliances, such as digital smart TV, air conditioner and so on. The users can easily operate the invisible IR LED to make the specific command by simply blinking the IR LED. Then, the proposed system can easily analyze the state of IR LED and understand the human intention by image processing using a built-in embedded processor within the digital appliances. Therefore, the proposed system can directly understand and generate specific command signal to control the digital appliances without any communication circuit between remote controller and digital devices unlike the previous remote controllers. Experimental results show that the proposed remote controller is easy to use and can successfully operate to execute human intent command.