Robosapien's IR receiver

Projects General Guidance
1

I found this broken Robosapien toy at a garage sale and it does turn on but it didn't come with a remote and after reading a bit I found that it has an IR receiver in the eyes which is basically what it uses to get commands. I am not really familiar with how IR receivers and transmitters work other than the fact the transmitter has a LED which operates in infrared spectrum and it flashes really fast and the receiver gets this light signal which it uses to interpret the signal. I know photodiodes usually have an infrared LED which shoots beams of light for the photodiode to receive but that is usually very close range and my TV remote or the Robosapien can operate at 20-30 feet and I don't really understand how an infrared LED and photodiode can communicate over such a long distance since light can't or shouldn't really reach so far accurately....

So I have 2 requests:

Can someone explain how this IR remote and receiver really works from a long distance compared to the infrared LED and photodiode?

Second, how can I use the cheap IR remote from sparkfun to control this Robosapien since I don't have its remote and thus, I don't know what the pulses for light should be for it to receive the proper instructions.

2

Google"hacking robosapien" for lots of info.

3

google "sb project ir" to find out how IR signals are made up...

It is unlikely you can reverse engineer the signals without having the original remote control - unless it has already been done and published on the internet.

Once you know the IR protocol format and the control codes - you should be able to control it using the IRremote library on Arduino. You will also need an IR LED and restistor to transmit the IR signal.

There are many example of how to do this online and on the IRremote website.

4

jremington:
Google"hacking robosapien" for lots of info.

Yeah - definitely THIS.

The Robosapien was made to be hacked; numerous interviews with Mark Tilden attest to this - heck, if you open it up and look at the PCB inside, you will see how nicely labelled it is, perfect for hacking.

There's also a great book out there - called "The Official Robosapien Hacker's Guide" - not sure if it is still in print, though - you may have to shop used/second-hand.

Here's an interesting link, too:

Have fun with your new toy!

5

http://thomasmeghe.fr/en/blog/2013/05/13/tweetosapien/
http://www.robotsandcomputers.com/robots/IRremotes.htm
http://www.markcra.com/robot/robos.shtml
http://code.google.com/p/hack-a-robosapien/wiki/ArduinoConnectionCode