Patent ID: 7737862

Claim:
A remote control system including a remote control device and one or more controlled target devices, wherein said remote control device comprises: an antenna unit for being switched between a directional antenna and an omni-directional antenna; a wireless communication unit connected to said antenna unit; a user input/output unit; a target search unit, responsive to a target search instruction input from said user input/output unit, for transmitting a search signal including a unique identifier through said wireless communication unit with said antenna unit switched to said directional antenna and for identifying one of said one or more controlled target devices based on a response signal including the identifier and device information received at said wireless communication unit; and a target control unit for transmitting a remote control signal including the identifier, for remote controlling said identified one of said one or more devices, through said wireless communication unit with said antenna unit switched to said omni-directional antenna; and wherein each of said one or more controlled target devices comprises: an antenna; a wireless communication unit connected to the antenna; a device information memory unit for storing the device information on said each of said one or more controlled target devices; an identifier memory unit for storing the identifier assigned to said each of said one or more controlled target devices; a search response unit for storing the identifier included in the search signal in the identifier memory unit, when the search signal transmitted from said remote control device is received by the wireless communication unit, and for transmitting the response signal including the identifier and the device information stored in the device information memory unit to said remote control device through the wireless communication unit; and a function control unit for comparing the identifier included in the remote control signal with the identifier stored in the identifier memory unit when the remote control signal transmitted from said remote control device is received by the wireless communication unit, and for executing processing specified by the remote control signal when coincidence of the identifiers is detected.