Generic Infrared Transceiver Using AVR

Creating a universal remote control for emitting and receiving all kinds of codes is the purpose of this generic infrared transceiver.

The concept of the project is based on the famous TV-B-Gone remote and the source code is licensed under the GPL. There are 4 powerful infrared LEDs, a USB port, and an ATmega168 microcontroller in the hardware. The 4 buttons are used for selecting transmitter and learning mode, enabling USB, and other functions. For sorting all kinds of codes, a 2MB Atmel data flash is used and for detecting the correct carrier frequency, a learning mechanism is applied.

An infrared is a normal light with 950nm wave length below the visible spectrum, making it not visible with the human eyes. It can come from several sources although the sun is the brightest source of all. For the record, everything that radiates heat can also radiate infrared light. To achieve an acceptable control distance in a transmitter, the IR signal should be as strong as possible and should also consume less power since it is usually battery-powered handset. The modulation frequency used and availability is the most important criteria in selecting the receiver.

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