RF2ir | RF to IR converter | Radio Frequency to Infrared Converter
This page describes RF2ir i.e. RF (Radio Frequency) to IR (Infrared) converter and IR to RF converter.
As we know IR (Infrared) and RF (Radio Frequency) have their own advantages and disadvantages to be used for controlling applications. IR is a Line of Sight way of communication and hence it is more secure. Being a LOS system, it can not be used to transmit signal to longer distances and hence RF need to be used for the same.
Both RF and IR based converters are mainly targetted for remote control application. In such applications RF operates in ISM band. ISM band uses different frequencies in different regional locations. Most popular among them is 434 MHz used in Europe, Africa and 902 to 928 MHz used in America.
In order to utilize benefits of both IR and RF based technologies converters have been developed from one to the other. Following section describes IR to RF converter and RF to IR converter.

RF to IR Converter
As shown in the figure, RF to IR converter converts Radio Frequency Signal based commands to Infrared Signal based commands.
Following functionalities are incorporated in the design of RF to IR Converter:
• Detection of RF carrier
• Clock recovery and Synchronization in order to decode data properly.
• Manchester decoding of payload part carried in the received frame.
• Payload Bit extraction from the decoded frame.
• Once the data is decoded it need to be transmitted over IR (Infrared) carrier frequency
of 38 KHz with the use of LED.
IR (Infrared) to RF Converter
As shown in the figure, IR to RF converter converts Infrared signal to Radio Frequency signal.
Following functionalities are incorporated in the design of IR to RF Converter:
• The infrared frame is received and decoded into bits.
• The decoded data bits are passed through the modulator (ASK or FSK) and converted to RF carrier frequency.
• The RF converted data is transmitted using antenna.
Refer difference between IR remote vs RF remote➤ and IR TV Remote Control➤ which describes Infrared(IR) TV remote transmitter and IR TV remote receiver.
What is Difference between
INSTEON vs Zigbee INSTEON vs X10 INSTEON vs HomePlug INSTEON vs Z-wave zigbee vs Z-wave Bluetooth vs zigbee Bluetooth vs BLE
IoT Wireless Technologies
➤WLAN
➤THREAD
➤EnOcean
➤LoRa
➤SIGFOX
➤WHDI
➤Zigbee
➤6LoWPAN
➤Zigbee RF4CE
➤Z-Wave
➤NFC
➤RFID
➤INSTEON