Market trend and adoption
More than 30 percent of all mobile handsets worldwide offer IrDA as a wireless connectivity. PDAs have a 100 percent adoption rate. In regions like Japan and Korea, IrSimple combined with FIR and Remote Control has been mandated for mobile phones by some cellular service providers. In these regions, the adoption rate is approaching 100 percent, which is driving a new ecosystem of consumer devices connected via infrared.
The movement toward higher resolution in camera phones has increased the consumer desire to print photographs directly from a mobile handset or display them on a TV. The FIR and VFIR standards allow for quick, direct transfer of these files and larger MP3 files—therefore adoption of IrDA standards is growing again in printers, with multiple companies introducing new printers with integrated FIR and IrSimple connectivity. In addition, the connectivity concept has been extended to MP3 players, TVs and other displays, projectors, and digital cameras due to the high popularity of the intuitive interface.
Infrared connectivity has crossed over from the consumer world into commercial and industrial applications through a few specialized applications. For example, the secure nature of the infrared protocol allows for quick wireless financial transactions as well as data transfer to and from industrial handheld terminals.
Inside IrSimple
IrSimple has a very similar structure to the existing IrDA protocol and can easily be upgraded. It uses the OBEX (Object Exchange) profile for data exchange between two devices and requires adjustments in only a few layers. SMP (Sequence Management Protocol) provides services like segmentation and reassembly to the upper layer of OBEX and lower layer of IrLMP (Ir Link Management Protocol). IrLMP is responsible for linking multiple devices and for maintaining the database of discovered IrDA devices. IrLAP (Ir Link Access Protocol) provides guidelines for the software to search and locate other machines, resolve addressing conflicts, initiate a connection, transfer data, and cleanly disconnect. IrLAP specifies the frame and byte structure of IR packets, as well as the error detection methodology for IR communications. Error checking and error correction are done by implementing sequence numbering in its packet header. The figure below illustrates the protocol stack of the existing protocol, IrSimple and the combined protocol. This structure is valid for all IrDA link standards (SIR, MIR, FIR and VFIR).
To conclude, Infrared is a widely adopted wireless technology, especially useful in portable devices. In the past, low data rate (SIR) and inefficient protocol implementation limited the usage of IrDA connectivity, but IrDA has made significant improvements by adopting IrSimple specifications as its high-speed wireless communications protocol standard. IrSimple achieves faster data transmission speeds (at least 4 to 10 times faster than at present) by improving the efficiency of the current infrared IrDA protocol. The "Point & Shoot" user model allows users to share files even with sizable content in less time than the "discovery" process for Bluetooth. The directional nature of infrared has the intuitiveness of a remote control that nearly everyone is familiar with from TVs, VCRs and other devices. A significant increase in adopting higher and more efficient IR solutions has already been noted in regions like Japan and Korea, but it is expected to happen in other regions as well. This new high-speed infrared technology combines high speed and cost efficiency with intuitiveness and user friendliness for data transfer in mobile devices.
About the Author Renato Meola is the European business development manager for Infrared and Sensors in the Optical Communication Solutions Division of Avago Technologies. Renato started his career with Agilent Technologies in 2000 as field application engineer for fiber optic products in networking and telecommunication applications. He moved to marketing in 2003 supporting European customers on camera modules in the mobile phone arena before he took over the European responsibility for Infrared and Sensor Products. He holds a Master degree in Electrical Engineering and received his PhD degree from the Technical University of Munich in Germany.
