IR Seeker Working Theory

How does QikEasy IR Seeker work?

Our Secret Sauces

Unlike other commercial products or most DIY sensors, QikEasy IR Seeker uses real 40KHz (which is the frequency of the carrier wave output by the IR Ball) IR receivers and not the 38KHz ones.  Additionally, instead of reading the strengths through the analog method (after passing the IR receiver output through a Low Pass filter), our speedy microcontroller does all the heavy lifting in measuring the inverted pulse widths of the IR receiver outputs which are used to calculate the IR signal strength thus the distance from the IR Ball.

Here are the main ingredients of our secret sauce in achieving the great accuracy:

• • Use IR receivers with filter for 40KHz carrier, not 38KHz.
  • Calculate signal strengths digitally by measuring pulse widths of the IR Receiver outputs.
  • Use running averages of measured strength values to smooth out the values.
  • Our IR receivers are pre-matched through our proprietary calibration process.  This ensures that the 5 IR Receivers on each IR Seeker board return approximately the same values for IR signals of same intensity.
  • Specially designed enclosure is optically optimized to allow QikEasy IR Seeker to offer the most accurate directional results.