Chapter 3

IrDA and Bar Code IR

IrDA
The Infrared Data Association (IrDA)
defines physical specifications
communications protocol standards for the
short-range exchange of data over
infrared light, for uses such as personal
area networks (PANs).

IrDA
IrDA is a very short-range example of free-space
optical communication. No government
regulation!
IrDA interfaces are used in palmtop computers,
mobile phones, and laptop computers
Many laptops no longer offer IrDA in favor of
Bluetooth or WiFi which dont need line of sight.
For the devices to communicate via IrDA they
must have a direct line of sight.
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Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless communications
standard that utilizes radio-frequency transmissions in
the 2.4GHz
RF not line of sight
Longer distance, so can be monitored
Needs encryption

Industrial-Scientific-Medical (ISM) band

potentially subject to government regulation

Devices like garage door openers, baby monitors, and

high-end cordless phones already inhabit the ISM band,
though, so it's a potentially noisy part of the spectrum.
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IrDA-Data

Bluetooth

Physical Media

Infrared

RF (2.4 GHz)

Communications
Range

Up to at least 1m

10cm to 100m

Connection Type,
Direction

Point-to-Point, Narrow Angle

(30 degrees)

Multipoint, Omni-directional

Maximum Data
Rate

4Mbps (16Mbps on the way)

1Mbps (aggregate)

Security

Physical limitations offer some

built-in protection

Authentication, encryption,
spread spectrum

Approximate
Cost

under $2

under $5

Table 1. IrDA and Bluetooth Feature Comparison

 Can send document from PDA to printer

without any wires connected!
Use software protocol stack
similar to TCP/IP
IrDA-1.1 standard
max data size is 2048 bytes
maximum Xmit rate is 4 Mbps.

 You never have to wonder which device you are

actually talking to.
The infrared signal is emitted in a narrow cone of
light and with very little signal strength.
You've generally got to be within one meter of
the other device and have your infrared
transceiver pointed in its approximate direction.
So there's not much fear of interference from
other IrDA devices (except from fluorescent
lights and other background producers of
infrared radiation) or eavesdropping.
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4 Layers to IrDA
IrPHY

Lowest Layer

a physical layer that defines data rates, the encoding of individual

bits, and the way that bits are combined into frames

IrLAP

2nd Layer

Link Access Protocol

Data Link Layer of the OSI model
provides addressing, error detection, and retransmission
capabilities to ensure the reliable delivery of all packets

IrLMP

3rd Layer

Link Management Protocol layer that enables multiple

simultaneous conversations between the two connected systems

Tiny TP

Top Layer

Tiny Transport Protocol

Segmentation and Reassembly of large messages.
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IrPHY
Infrared Physical Layer Specification
Lowest layer of the IrDA specifications
Range (Standard: 1 m,
low-power to low-power: 0.2 m,
Standard to low power: 0.3 m)
Angle (minimum cone +/-15)
Speed (2.4 kbit/s to 16 Mbit/s)
Modulation (Base band, no carrier)
half-duplex mode because while transmitting
receiver is blinded by the light of its own
transmitter, so full duplex not possible.
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SIR
Serial Infrared (SIR) speeds cover those
transmission speeds normally supported
by an RS-232 port.
9600 bit/s,
19.2 kbit/s,
38.4 kbit/s,
57.6 kbit/s,
115.2 kbit/s.
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Bit Rates
Serial Infrared (SIR)

<= 115.2 kbit/s

MIR (Medium Infrared)

0.576 Mbit/s
and 1.152 Mbit/s

Fast Infrared (FIR)

4 Mbit/s.

Very Fast Infrared (VFIR)

UFIR (Ultra Fast Infrared)

16 Mbit/s.
100 Mbit/s.

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Bar Code IR
Modern bar code began in 1948.
Bernard Silver, a grad student at Drexel Institute of
Technology in Philadelphia,
Overheard president of a local food chain asking one of
the deans to undertake research to develop a system to
automatically read product information during checkout.
Silver told his friend Norman Joseph Woodland about the
food chain president's request.
Woodland was a twenty seven year old graduate student
and teacher at Drexel. The problem fascinated
Woodland and he began to work on the problem.
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UPC

Universal Product Code.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/upc.htm

UPC symbol printed on a package has two parts:

The machine-readable bar code
The human-readable 12-digit UPC number
BYG Publishing's manufacturer identification number is the first six
digits of the UPC number -- 639382.
The next five digits -- 00039 -- are the item number.
The last digit, 3, of the UPC code is called a check digit.

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Check Digit

Here is how the check digit is calculated for the other 11 digits,
using the code 63938200039 from "The Teenager's Guide to the
Real World" example shown above:
Step 1 - Add together the value of all of the digits in odd positions
(digits 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11).
6 + 9 + 8 + 0 + 0 + 9 = 32
Step 2 - Multiply that number by 3.
32 * 3 = 96
Step 3 - Add together the value of all of the digits in even positions
(digits 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10).
3 + 3 + 2 + 0 + 3 = 11
Step 4 - Add this sum to the value in step 2.
96 + 11 = 107
Step 5 - Take the number in Step 4. To create the check digit,
determine the number that, when added to the number in step 4, is
a multiple of 10.
107 + 3 = 110 The check digit is therefore 3.
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UPC
One thing you will notice if you start
looking at UPC codes in detail is that the
big manufactures have manufacturer IDs
with lots of zeros in them. Here are a few:
Post - 043000
General Mills - 016000
Del Monte - 024000
Quaker Oats - 030000
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Decoding the Bars

First of all, look at any 12-digit bar code. It
is made up of black bars and white spaces
between the bars. Assume that the
thinnest bar or space that you see can be
called "one unit wide." The bars and
spaces can therefore be seen to have
proportional widths of one, two, three or
four units. If you look at any bar code you
can see examples of these four widths.
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Start Code
The start of any bar code is "1-1-1." That
is, starting at the left you find a one-unitwide black bar followed by a one-unit-wide
white space followed by a one-unit-wide
black bar (bar-space-bar).

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Bar Code
Following the start code, the digits are encoded as follows:
0 = 3-2-1-1
1 = 2-2-2-1
2 = 2-1-2-2
3 = 1-4-1-1
4 = 1-1-3-2
5 = 1-2-3-1
6 = 1-1-1-4
7 = 1-3-1-2
8 = 1-2-1-3
9 = 3-1-1-2
Notice that all of these encodings add up to 7.
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The code embedded in the bars is

043000181706
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Decoding the Bar Code

The code embedded in the bars is 043000181706
The bar code starts with the standard start code of 1-1-1 (bar-space-bar).
The zero is 3-2-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar).
The four is 1-1-3-2 (space-bar-space-bar).
The three is 1-4-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar).
The next three zeros are 3-2-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar).

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 In the middle there is a standard 1-1-1-1-1 (spacebar-space-bar-space), which is important because it

means the numbers on the right are optically
inverted!
So now we have bar-space-bar-space,
rather than space-bar-space-bar

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The one is 2-2-2-1 (bar-space-bar-space).

The eight is 1-2-1-3 (bar-space-bar-space).
The one is 2-2-2-1 (bar-space-bar-space).
The seven is 1-3-1-2 (bar-space-bar-space).
The zero is 3-2-1-1 (bar-space-bar-space).
The six is 1-1-1-4 (bar-space-bar-space).
The stop character is a 1-1-1 (bar-space-bar).

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