Robert Adler
(1913 - )
Dr. Robert Adler is best known as the "Father of the TV Remote Control". He developed the first television remote control which was introduced in 1956 by Zenith Radio Corporation.
Robert Adler was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1913. After receiving his doctorate in physics at age 24 from the University of Vienna (1937), he became engaged in patent work there, and later went to England. After the war broke out, he emigrated to the US, and in 1941 he found work in the Research division of Zenith Electronics Corporation (then Zenith Radio Corporation), Chicago.
Adler developed the gated-beam tube which represented a new concept in receiving tubes. His noise-gated synch clipper and automatic gain control secured stability of television reception in the fringe areas. Low-noise devices have claimed his attention ever since. His contribution to low-noise traveling-wave tubes was important in military communications. Later he applied the new principle of parametric amplification to electron beams.
Electromechanical devices have also interested Adler for a long time. During World War II, Adler specialized in military communications equipment, including high-frequency oscillators and electromechanical filters for aircraft radios. Remote control of television receivers by an ultrasonic gong grew out of this work.
After the war, Adler turned his attention specifically to television technology. One early invention of Adler's was the "gated-beam" vacuum tube, which eliminated a great deal of sound interference in television receivers at one stroke, thus reducing costs as well. Adler also led the team that invented a special synchronizing circuit that improved reception at the fringes of a television station's broadcast area.
But Adler's greatest triumph was the wireless remote control. The first machines to be operated by remote control were used mainly for military purposes. Radio-controlled motorboats, developed by the German navy, were used to ram enemy ships in WWI. Radio controlled bombs and other remote control weapons were used in WWII. Once the wars were over, United States scientists experimented to find nonmilitary uses for the remote control. In the late 1940’s automatic garage door openers were invented, and in the 1950’s the first TV remote controls were used. The first TV remote control, called "Lazy Bones," was developed in 1950 by Zenith Radio Corporation. Lazy Bones used a cable that ran from the TV set to the viewer. A motor in the TV set operated the tuner through the remote control.
Although customers liked having remote control of their television, they complained that people tripped over the unsightly cable that meandered across the living room floor. Zenith engineer Eugene Polley invented the "Flashmatic," which represented the industry's first wireless TV remote. Introduced in 1955, Flashmatic operated by means of four photo cells, one in each corner of the TV cabinet around the screen. While it pioneered the concept of wireless TV remote control, the Flashmatic had some limitations. It was a simple device that had no protection circuits and, if the TV sat in an area in which the sun shone directly on it, the tuner might start rotating. Zenith management loved the concepts proven by Polley's Flashmatic and directed his engineers to develop a better remote control. First thoughts pointed to radio. But, because they travel through walls, radio waves could inadvertently control a TV set in an adjacent apartment or room. Using distinctive sound signals was discussed, but Zenith engineers believed people might not like hearing a certain sound that would become characteristic of operating the TV set through a remote control. It also would be difficult to find a sound that wouldn't accidentally be duplicated by either household noises or by the sound coming from TV programming.
Robert Adler's solution was for the remote to "communicate" with the TV by sound, not light --- specifically, by ultrasound, that is, at frequencies higher than the human ear can hear. Adler's remote control unit itself was very simple: it did not even require batteries. The buttons struck one of four lightweight aluminum rods inside the unit, like a piano's keys strike its strings. The receiver in the TV interpreted these high-frequency tones as signaling channel-up, channel-down, sound on/off, or power on/off. The necessary 30% increase in cost was imposing to consumers at first, but there was no doubt about the popularity of the system. The creator of the first practical wireless TV remote control, Dr. Robert Adler, paved the way for TV viewers to become couch potatoes more than 40 years ago.
In the 1960s, Adler modified his system to generate the ultrasonic signals electronically. Over the next twenty years, the ultrasound TV remote control was slowly becoming a standard adjunct to the television. By the time remote technology moved on to infrared light technology in the early 1980s, more than nine million TVs had been sold, by Zenith and others, with Adler's remote control system.
In addition to his own research, in the thirty-five years after he joined the research group at Zenith, he played an increasingly important role in forging one of the great industrial research teams in the U.S., at times numbering more than three hundred people. When economic exigencies compelled a drastic retrenching of this activity, rather than preside over it, Adler resigned his post in 1978. He continues, however, as consultant to Zenith. He is also research director of the Extel Corporation in Northbrook, Illinois. Always committed to the continuing education of engineers, Adler is also adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana.
Robert Adler has been granted 180 U.S. patents for electronics devices, whose applications run from the esoteric to the everyday; he is best known as the a pioneer in the development of the remote control. He also published over 45 technical papers and articles. He was elected fellow of the IEEE in 1951 "for his development of transmission and detection devices for frequency modulated signals and of electro-mechanical filter systems." He received the Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 1958, the Inventor of the Year award from George Washington University in 1967, the IEEE Outstanding Achievement Award in Consumer Electronics in 1970, the Outstanding Technical Paper Award from the Chicago Section of the IEEE in 1974, and the Edison Medal in 1980. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
His hobbies attest to the man. Whenever he can, Adler makes a pilgrimage, with his wife Mary, to the Rockies for mountain hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. He obtained his pilot license twenty-five years ago and is an enthusiastic flier. One incident is characteristic. When sent to Moscow as a member of the IEEE delegation to the Popov Society Meeting in 1969, he learned Russian so that, as a goodwill gesture to his hosts, he could present his paper in their language.
By 1963, Adler had risen to Vice and President and Director of Research at Zenith. Adler officially "retired" as Zenith’s vice president of research in 1982, but he was a technical advisor to the company until 1997.
Courtesy of:
http://www.geocities.com/neveyaakov/electro_science/adler.html