Vale Robert Adler, 1913-2007 - TV Remote Control Co-Inventor

The man who invented the remote control for the television, Dr. Robert Adler, died this week, giving us a timely reminder of just how fast technology is progressing. Dr. Adler's "Space Command" ultrasonic remote control for TV sets was introduced by Zenith in 1956 and two years later saw him win the 1958 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award of the Institute of Radio Engineers (now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE) for his "original work on ultrasonic remote controls" for television. Though he was best known as co-inventor of the wireless remote control for television , along with fellow Zenith engineer Eugene Polley), Adler was responsible for a large number of significant scientific contributions to the electronics industry, including landmark inventions in sophisticated specialized communications equipment.

A prolific inventor with a seemingly never-ending thirst for knowledge, his pioneering developments spanned from the Golden Age of Television into the High-Definition Era, earning him more than 180 U.S. patents. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published his most recent patent application, for advances in touch-screen technology, on Feb. 1.

Dr. Adler's six-decade career with Zenith Electronics Corporation began in 1941 when he joined Zenith's research division after receiving his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Vienna in 1937. He was named associate director in 1952, vice president in 1959, and vice president and director of research in 1963. He retired as research vice president in 1979, and served Zenith as a technical consultant until 1999, when Zenith merged with LG Electronics.

"Bob Adler was an unparalleled technical contributor, leader, adviser and teacher," said Jerry K. Pearlman, retired Zenith chairman and CEO, who knew Dr. Adler for 35 years. "His gifts and passions were many, his mentoring matchless and his ego totally nonexistent."

In the consumer electronics field, Dr. Adler has been widely recognized as the co-inventor (with fellow Zenith engineer Eugene Polley) of the wireless TV remote. Dr. Adler's "Space Command" ultrasonic remote control for TV sets was introduced by Zenith in 1956. He received the 1958 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award of the Institute of Radio Engineers (now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE) for his "original work on ultrasonic remote controls" for television.

Among Dr. Adler's earlier work was the gated-beam tube which, at the time of its introduction, represented an entirely new concept in the field of vacuum tubes. The use of this tube greatly simplified the sound system in television receivers, markedly improving reception by screening out certain types of sound interference while lowering the cost of the sound channel.

Dr. Adler also was instrumental in originating and developing a synchronizing circuit which permitted demonstrably greater stability in fringe areas of the television reception. This invention was in wide use for many years and its principles are still employed today.

The electron beam parametric amplifier, developed in 1958 by Dr. Adler jointly with Glen Wade, then of Stanford University, was at the time the most sensitive practical amplifier for ultra high frequency (UHF) signals. It was used by radio astronomers in the United States and abroad, and by the U.S. Air Force for long-range missile detection.

Dr. Adler's original work in the field of acousto-optical interaction was instrumental in the 1966 public demonstration, by a team of Zenith engineers, of an experimental television display using ultrasonic deflection and modulation of a laser beam to produce a wall-size TV picture without a cathode ray tube.

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