KR100809395B1 - Method for remote control and apparatus thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are a portable terminal apparatus having a remote control function and a remote control method using the same. The apparatus includes a device information acquisition unit for obtaining an identifier for the device; An application program unit including an application program corresponding to the obtained identifier; And a control command transmitter for transmitting a remote control command of the user to the device based on the application program. According to the present invention, in controlling the home appliances in the vicinity, it is possible to fine remote control with a mobile phone without a remote control corresponding to each home appliance.

Description

Portable terminal device having a remote control function and a remote control method using the same

1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a portable terminal device having a remote control function according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a remote control method using a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a portable terminal device having a remote control function according to another embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a conceptual diagram showing the configuration of a remote control system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a remote control method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

6 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a case where various application programs are installed in the portable terminal device of FIG. 3.

7 illustrates a user interface for a control application displayed on a portable terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to a device and a method for controlling devices in the vicinity, and more particularly, to a device and a method for remotely controlling devices as needed using a portable terminal.

 Conventional examples of use of various home appliances have been to use a remote controller to control a home appliance, called an integrated remote control, all of which had to have a separate remote controller for each individual appliance. Both methods are very inconvenient for the user in terms of cost or convenience. In the former case, it is inconvenient to maintain a remote controller for each individual device, but whenever a user wants to use the device, finding the remote controller for the device is the user's biggest inconvenience. While the latter is more convenient than the former, it can't provide a specialized user interface to take advantage of the intricate details of individual devices.

The present invention has been made in an effort to provide a mobile terminal device capable of remotely controlling devices whenever necessary and a remote control method using the same.

In order to achieve the above technical problem, a portable terminal device having a remote control function according to the present invention comprises: a device information acquisition unit for obtaining an identifier for a device; An application program unit including an application program corresponding to the obtained identifier; And a control command transmitter for transmitting a remote control command of the user to the device based on the application program.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a remote control method using a portable terminal device, the method including: obtaining an identifier for a device; Providing an application program corresponding to the obtained identifier; And transmitting a user's remote control command to the device based on the application program.

Hereinafter, a method and an apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

There are many electronic devices in the house, including VTRs, TVs, DVD players, and audio devices that operate with remote controls. As home networks and home automation accelerate, more and more home appliances will grow, and devices that do not have traditional remote management capabilities will be transformed into remotely controllable devices. It is desirable to be controlled. In this case, the user should be able to easily find the controller for the device they want to operate at any time and have a specialized interface that expresses the characteristics of the device that can be easily controlled while expressing all the various functions of the device.

 The present invention has been proposed to solve such a problem, and its purpose is to dynamically obtain an information program of home appliances and dynamically mount an application program on the mobile terminal to control all the home appliances to operate all home appliances with only one mobile terminal. An apparatus, method, and system capable of doing the same are provided. In other words, the present invention proposes a device for integrating various devices capable of remote control to remotely control a portable terminal.

 The overall system of the present invention for achieving the above object is composed of a portable terminal, home appliances, application management server. Here, the mobile terminal is connected to a network such as the Internet, and can be installed dynamically in the mobile terminal (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless), WIPI (Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability), JVM (Java Virtual Machine) and Equipped with the same wireless Internet platform or virtual machine. Home appliances are additionally equipped with a code to identify the product and the manufacturer of the product, such as RFID tags, barcodes, and serial numbers. The application management server sends the application controlling the respective devices to the mobile terminal.

1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a portable terminal apparatus having a remote control function according to an embodiment of the present invention. The device information obtaining unit 100, the application program unit 105, and the control command transmitting unit 130 are shown. It is made to include.

Referring to FIG. 1, the device information acquisition unit 100 obtains an identifier for a device and a URL connecting to a server providing an application program of the device.

Here, an example of a method of obtaining an identifier and a universal resources locator (URL) is as follows. First, in the case of a device equipped with an RFID tag, the device information acquiring unit 100 includes an RFID reader function. Here, the device is identified by using the acquired identifier, RFID, and the relevant URL is obtained through the object directory service (ODS) based on the RFID specification. Second, a method of recognizing a bar code using a camera function built in the device information acquisition unit 100 bar code of the device. Here, the server accesses a server designated separately by using barcode information, which is a recognized identifier, or obtains an application program management server URL related to the device by using data stored in the portable terminal. Third, a method in which a user directly inputs a mobile terminal using a code written on a device and calls a program managing the code to obtain a related URL. Fourth, the device manufacturer may obtain the URL separately by marking the URL and the product code on the device at the time of manufacture of the device. On the other hand, the above four methods are merely an example of the identifier and URL acquisition method of the device information acquisition unit 100 of the present invention, the method of acquiring device information according to the present invention is necessarily limited to the above-described example It is not.

The application program unit 105 includes an application program corresponding to the obtained identifier, which enables the control command transmitter 130 to transmit a control command based on the application program at the time of the user's remote control command. will be. Here, referring to FIG. 1, the application program unit 105 includes an application program acquisition unit 110 and an application program management unit 120.

The application obtaining unit 110 downloads an application corresponding to the identifier from the server based on the obtained identifier and the URL. That is, it connects to the server pointed to by the URL and provides an identifier to the server. Next, the server searches for an application program controlling the device corresponding to the identifier in its DB, and provides the application program to the application obtaining unit 110. Specific examples of the application acquisition unit 110 using a browser and a wireless Internet platform will be described later.

On the other hand, instead of unconditionally downloading the application, the application acquisition unit 110 obtains information on the application from the server first, and based on the obtained information, the application is already installed in the mobile terminal device. It is also possible to check the application and download the application if it is determined that it is not installed.

The application manager 120 installs and manages the obtained application program. That is, it may have a function of installing and registering the acquired application program, and may have a function of determining whether the application program is already installed as described above.

The control command transmitter 130 transmits a user's remote control command to the device based on the installed application program. As a specific example, when the remote control interface is displayed on the LCD of the portable terminal device by the installed application program, the user inputs a control command using a key button or the like according to the displayed menu item. Then, according to the input information, the installed application generates a remote control command and sends it to the device. In reverse, an example of a method for transmitting a remote control command is a method using an infrared device.

2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a remote control method using a mobile terminal according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, first, an identifier for a device and a URL for connecting to a server providing an application program of the device are obtained (S200). Next, the application corresponding to the identifier is downloaded from the server based on the obtained identifier and the URL (S210). The acquired application program is installed (S220). The user's remote control command for the device is transmitted based on the installed application program (S230). Here, for a detailed description of each step, refer to the above description and the following description.

3 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a portable terminal device having a remote control function according to another embodiment of the present invention, and includes an operating system (OS) 300, a portable terminal hardware 310, and an RFID reader 320. , Camera 330, browser 340, application manager 350, wireless internet platform (virtual machine) 360, and infrared device 370.

Since the OS 300 and the portable terminal hardware 310 are necessary for a general portable terminal device and are obvious to those skilled in the art, the detailed description thereof will be omitted. The portable terminal has an infrared device 370, which is a device that enables remote control. In addition, the RFID reader 320 and the camera 330 may be additionally mounted to acquire an identifier for the device as described above. In addition, a wireless Internet platform or a virtual machine 360 capable of downloading and executing an application for a portable terminal should be installed on the operating system 300. In addition, the browser 340 capable of accessing the web server and the WAP server must be operating, and the application manager 350 operating the browser 340 by recognizing device identifiers must be operating at the same time.

4 is a conceptual diagram showing the configuration of a remote control system according to an embodiment of the present invention, the home appliances 400, the portable terminal 410, the communication network 420 and the application management server (430, 440, 450) It is made, including.

There are electronic devices 400 to be operated, and there is a mobile terminal 410 to control them, and there is a communication network 420 such as CDMA and WCDMA to which the mobile terminal is connected, which contains a home appliance control program. Application management servers 430, 440, and 450 are connected.

The home appliances 400 may have externally readable device information in at least one form of an RFID tag, a barcode, or a serial number, or may have a manufacturer and model information explicitly indicated. Or have a code or keyword that identifies the manufacturer's web server address and product.

The application management servers 430, 440, and 450 perform a function of a web server or a WAP server. Here, the web server and the WAP server perform a function of transmitting an application program for remotely controlling the corresponding device using the device information and the terminal information of the mobile terminal.

5 is a flowchart illustrating a remote control method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The apparatus and method according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5 as follows.

First, an identifier reader such as an RFID reader is operated in a mobile terminal (S500), and a user first identifies a device to be manipulated using the mobile terminal (S505). There are many ways to identify. If the device is equipped with an RFID tag, the device is recognized using a portable terminal equipped with an RFID reader, and a related URL (Universal Resources Locator) is obtained through ODS (Object Directory Service) based on product identification information and RFID specification. .

Another method is to recognize the barcode of the product with a mobile terminal camera. It is necessary to access a server separately designated by using the recognized barcode information or to obtain an application management server URL related to the device by using data stored in the portable terminal.

Alternatively, the user may use a code displayed on the device to directly input the information into a mobile terminal and call a program that manages the code to obtain a related URL. Alternatively, the device manufacturer may omit the process of obtaining the URL separately by marking the URL and the product code on the device.

There are many other methods that can be used, but the important thing is that you must be able to determine the URL associated with the device and the identifier that indicates the product type.

That is, the device is recognized by the above-described various methods, and based on the recognition information, a URL related to the device and an identifier that can be used to identify the device in the server indicated by the URL are obtained (S510).

Based on the obtained information, the mobile terminal accesses the server having the obtained URL address (S515). The mobile terminal informs the server of the corresponding URL address of the identified product or device after accessing the URL through the browser program inside the terminal (S520). At this time, the server determines the type of the product and can control the corresponding device, and delivers application program information that can operate on the wireless Internet platform or the virtual machine installed in the mobile terminal (S525).

Based on the transmitted information, the application manager 250 installed in the mobile terminal determines whether the corresponding program is pre-installed (S530). If not installed (S530) to download and install from the application management server (S535). If it is already installed (S530) to operate the application (S540), and after S535 also operates the installed application (S540). The installed program is installed in the portable terminal for each device as shown in FIG. 6 and is launched by an application manager as necessary to operate while providing a dedicated user interface for operating the device as shown in FIG. 7. That is, as illustrated in FIG. 7, the application is registered as an application in the mobile terminal and managed through the application manager 350 (S545).

The invention can also be embodied as computer readable code on a computer readable recording medium. Computer-readable recording media include all kinds of recording devices that store data that can be read by a computer system. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disks, optical data storage devices, and the like, which are also implemented in the form of carrier waves (for example, transmission over the Internet). Include. The computer readable recording medium can also be distributed over network coupled computer systems so that the computer readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion. In addition, functional programs, codes, and code segments for implementing the present invention can be easily inferred by programmers in the art to which the present invention belongs.

Such a method and apparatus of the present invention have been described with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings for clarity, but these are merely exemplary, and various modifications and equivalent other embodiments are possible to those skilled in the art. Will understand. Therefore, the true technical protection scope of the present invention will be defined by the appended claims.

According to the present invention, in controlling the home appliances in the vicinity, it is possible to remotely control the mobile phone without a remote control corresponding to each home appliance, can overcome the disadvantages of the integrated remote control that can not control the detailed functions of the home appliances In this case, the user can conveniently control the portable terminal device that can always be carried without having to find a remote controller whenever control is required.

That is, by using the present invention, if only a mobile terminal having a wireless Internet and an infrared device can be identified, a device to be easily manipulated whenever necessary and connected to a server can download a related application program and operate a device to be operated. In such an environment, the user does not need to carry or find a separate remote control for each device, and can also obtain the convenience of using an optimized and specialized user interface for each device that cannot be obtained from the existing integrated remote control.

Claims (8)

A device information acquisition unit for obtaining an identifier for the device and a URL for connecting to an individual server providing the application program of the device; An application program unit including an application program obtaining unit which downloads an application program corresponding to the identifier from the server based on the obtained identifier and URL, and an application program manager which installs and manages the obtained application program; And And a control command transmitter for transmitting a user's remote control command to the device based on the installed application program. delete The method of claim 1, wherein the application program acquisition unit A browser accessing the server and downloading the application program; And And a wireless internet platform or a virtual machine that searches for and executes the downloaded application program. According to claim 1, wherein the device information acquisition unit And the identifier is obtained using at least one of an RFID and a barcode installed in the device. In the remote control method using a mobile terminal device, Obtaining an identifier for the device and a URL connecting to an individual server providing the application program of the device; Downloading an application corresponding to the identifier from the server based on the obtained identifier and URL; Installing and managing the downloaded application program; And Transmitting a user's remote control command to the device based on the installed application program. delete The method of claim 5, wherein the obtaining step And acquiring the identifier using at least one of an RFID and a barcode mounted on the device. A computer-readable recording medium containing a program for performing the method according to claim 5.

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