Nadim

Al Droubi

Northeastern University
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

EECE 2211: Lab for EECE 2210 Electrical Engineering

Lecturer: Prof. Dorin Neacsu
TAs:
Linbin Chen
Huaihao Chen

Lab # 5 & 6: IR Remote-Control Development Part 1 and 2.

Group #12:
Nadim Al Droubi
James

Semester: Fall 2017

Date: 13th December, 2017
Lab Session: 23rd November, 2017
Lab Location: 9 Hayden Hall, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115

Introduction

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The labs performed during Labs 5 and 6 had the aim to build and optimize a remote-

control transmitter and receiver which are immune to stray light from the room. In lab 5 the

transmitter was designed, built and debugged, insuring that the signal being transmitted differs

from others in the room as to not cause interference from other groups. Only parts of the receiver

circuitry were designed and built during lab 5 and that included a phototransistor/resistor circuit,

a high pass amplifier, a rectifier, a lowpass filter. In lab 6 however the rest of the circuitry was

completed which included adding a comparator, a flip flop and a relay. In total the receiver

contained 8 different blocks which had to be integrated together. The constructed blocks

allowed the transmitted light to be distinguishable from other noises causing frequency by

modulating the transmitted LED by turning it on and off at an appropriately chosen frequency.

The system built should operate well between 5 and 20 kHz with the components offered in the

lab. In order to be able to further eliminate external interference the ratio between the frequencies

of the two systems is the important design parameter. In order to do this a MATLAB code

provided was used to acquire the data and plot the transfer function of the bandpass filter block.

In order to be able to calculate values for different components of the blocks

the following formulas found below have been used. The equations are numbered to later be

referred back to throughout the lab report and labelled.

𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 = 0.693𝐶𝑇(𝑅2 + 𝑅4 ) (1)

2
𝑓7 = (2)
(48∗:;< ∗=)

:?
𝐻7 = (3)
4:@

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Procedure

Part 1, The Transmitter:

The first part of building and designing this lab started with the transmitter. A 555-timer
integrated circuit was used to modulate the transmitted light. The timing for the transmitter was
controlled by externally connected resistors and capacitors. Figure (1) and (2) below shows the
integrated circuit for the 555-timer and the pin schematic respectively. A resistor R was used to
limit the between 50 and 100 mA. It was mandatory to use current limiting resistors on both
LEDs so that neither the 555 or the LEDs are damaged. The period of the 555-timer’s oscillation
is determined by CT, R1 and R2, where the 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 = 0.693𝐶𝑇(𝑅1 + 𝑅2). It was important to
keep the duty cycle close to 1 which is the ratio of the duration of the high state output to the
duration of the low state output. R1 should be chosen close to 1KΩ. Replacing R2 with a
potentiometer helps alternate the resistance as needed to adjustment to the transmission
frequency. Finally, a 9V battery was connected to the pushbutton to allow the transmitter to
transmit the signal configured.

Figure 1: Circuit schematic for 555 timer. Figure 2: Pin schematic for 555 timer.

Part 2, The Transmitter:

Starting with the phototransistor/resistor detector which was connected to a comparator from the
previous lab, disconnect the comparator and a circuitry will be built to cancel out the noise while
maintaining sensitivity at the chosen frequency. Figure (3) below shows the
phototransistor/resistor circuitry. It is important to note that the receiver will only work if it is not
saturated. Therefore, it is important to choose an RE value is appropriate. Insure that the
transmitter is working by connecting it to the oscilloscope and examine the output waveform.
The smaller the resistor used the greater the frequency response will be.
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Figure 3: Phototransistor circuit

High pass amplifier (Second Block):

This block will allow the signal circuit to be amplified, therefore filtering out the low frequency
components. What should be removed during this process is the 120 Hz noise from the room
light as well as the dc component of the signal. Figure 4 below shows the schematic of the high
pass amplifier where Vin is connected to Vout of the phototransistor. The frequency which marks
the division between signal passed and signals rejected is given by the equation (2) above. It is
important that the division is gradual and not sudden. Therefore, the frequency f0 should be set
far away from the 120Hz frequency from the room but still lower than the frequency modulation
frequency of the transmitter. This filter circuit modulates signal by amplifying it.

Figure 4: AC-coupled inverting amplifier

High pass amplifier (Second Block):

This circuit is designed to pass a narrow band of frequencies. This will further cancel out noise
from 120 Hz room light as the filter will be designed to have a pass band centered on the
frequency of the transmitter. Figure 5 below shows the bandpass circuit. H0 on the figure is the
voltage gain at the center of the passband, this gain is achieved by the use of a 741-op amp.

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Figure 5: Circuit diagram of the Bandpass filter

Rectifier (fourth block):

This part of the circuit will detect the signals being transmitted by the transmitter. A comparator
will be used to detect weather a signal exists or not. The AC signal from the bandpass filter will
need to be transformed into a DC signal and that is done by the following two steps. The first
step rectifies the signal meaning it will cut the signal allowing only positive or negative voltage
to go through. The second step is allowing the signal to go through a lowpass filter which will
allow the circuit to eliminate high frequencies allowing only the DC signal to go through. This
circuit is shown below in figure 6. A 741 op-amp and 2 identical diodes were used, in building this circuit.

Figure 6: Rectifier and lowpass filter.

Comparator, flip flop and relay:

The comparator is used in the circuit to output a high voltage if the + input voltage is larger than
– input voltage and vise versa. The circuitry for the comparator is shown in figure 7 below. The
flip flop is used so that with each transmitted pulse the lamp will change state going from ON to
OFF or vice versa. The circuit diagram for the flip flop is shown in figure 8 below. The relay is
connected to the output of the flip-flop. To ensure that the circuit is not damaged it is

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recommended to add bypass capacitors of 100 microfarads between the negative supply and
ground. The configuration of the relay is shown below in figure 9.

Figure 7: Comparator schematic Figure 8: Flipflop pin schematic. Figure 9: Relay and lamp schematic.

Figure 10 below shows how the sequence of the blocks and the order they should be placed in.
Note that for each block there is an input voltage and an output voltage. The input voltage of
blocks 2 till 9 should be the output voltage of the block before it – making them work all in a
circuit.

Figure 10: Block diagram of the Transmitter and Receiver, showing the sequence of the different blocks to be built.

Results & Building

Transmitter:

The frequency that was set at the transmitter was 6.06 KHz this was done by adjusting the knobs
till the frequency was obtained. After connecting a Red LED to the circuit on the transmitter by
a push button, the LED was seen to go ON and OFF as required when pressing the button. To
ensure that a modulated frequency was received the output of the phototransistor was measured

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and read 6.06 KHz. Measuring the rang of frequencies using the oscilloscope the following
values for frequency were obtained, 3.28 > Hz > 4.95. This data is shown below in table 1. The
Gain was measured 10.

Frequency Set 6.06 KHz

Range of Frequencies 3.28 > Hz > 4.95
Table 1

Receiver:

Connecting the phototransistor as shown in the schematic above the output signal of the circuit
displayed an alternating shape as that shown in graph 1 below. This receiver was further experimented
on with two phototransistors which led to the same result. This is because they are having the same
affect on the signal transmitted.

Graph 1: Signal graph of V out after receiver.

High Pass Amplifier:

During the development of the high pass amplifier a change was made. The RE value was
changed from 0.5MΩ to 20KΩ. This was because the frequency in the high pass amplifier was
needed to remain below. As was seen on the oscilloscope the high pass amplifier did cancel out
some of the noise as the output of the voltage changed as shown in graph 2 compared to graph 1.
The values used for the high pass amplifier are
shown below in table 2.

Req 26500
R1 6500
R2 26500
C1 0.001

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Band Pass Filter:

The band pass filter was constructed with the values shown below in table 3.
Q 10
H0 10
F0 6 KHz
C 1*10-9 F
Table 3

Using values of R3 as 490’000Ω and R1 as 24500Ω, R2 as 1290Ω. The following graph is what
was expected to become.

Low pass filter:

For the low pass filter the following values shown in table 5 below have been used for the
respective resistances shown in the procedure part above.

C 1.526*10-9 F
R4 26kΩ
R3 7.5 KΩ
Fo 5 KHz

When connecting to the oscilloscope a constant -10V signal was produced whilst receiving a
signal and very close to 0 V when the push button was pushed on the transmitter. This has shown
that the low pass filter is working as needed cancelling out the AC signal allowing only DC to go
through. The signal shown on the
oscilloscope is shown below in graph 3.

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Rectifier:

The rectifier configured changed the signals between -10V and 10V by firstly cutting off the
negative voltages, allowing clipping to occur. This then overlapped the signals and changing
them into half sin waves as shown in the figures below.

Conclusion
In conclusion the remote control worked as needed. The distance set by the transmitter and
receiver working together was around 22 inches. This was 12 inches more than the required
distance and was achieved by using the correct resistance values throughout the circuit. Although
in the lab it was quite difficult to find the exact resistor and capacitor values for the circuit to
work as wanted sacrifices have been made throughout. Series and parallel connections were used
in order to achieve the desired values. The most difficult part in the lab was finding those values,
however with the help of the equation sheets provided in the lab the calculations were made
easy.