RFID BASED SMART SCHOOL SECURITY SYSTEM

Preamble:

Today’s world is based on the mercy of the internet. So all traditional spheres of our life are revolving around online world. With the advent of internet, we have it in our hands to check on our security measures with utmost ease, sharpness, speed and efficiency. Our said project focuses on the security systems implied in schools, specially kindergarten and primary classes to ensure school going kids are safe and sound at the school premises.

Idea and Concept:

Background of Project:

As in today’s circumstances, parents are much concerned about their child’s safety in their school and as kids cannot look after themselves, this can be a huge relieve to both teachers and parents. Also the school faculty can eliminate the manual process of checking each student’s id (which is not 100% effective and trusted) for security purpose. This will also help the class teachers to keep track of each student’s class performance and attendance. Although tracking systems are not unknown as a measure of security in our country, but use of RFID as the tracking technology is also relatively a little less known field in these types of systems in Bangladesh. We have decided to use RFID as the tracking technology as this field is not much explored and specially not in school level in Bangladesh.

Our project is also going to include an interacting website to help guardians and teachers to communicate and share their information and queries. This type of interacting website usually involves students and teachers but since we are dealing with pre-school and primary school going kids, so their guardians have their sole authority. Guardians can also monitor their child’s performance in school and also discuss their problems with their fellow teachers.

Objective:

RFID based smart school security system is basically a tracking system or tracker which traces the unique Tag in the chip which is provided to the student and this ID is used to uniquely identify them. This tracker tracks the ID using radio frequency within a definite diameter.

In this project, the RFID module reader typically contains a module (Transmitter & Receiver), a control unit and a coupling element (antenna). This module is interfaced with the micro-controller and when the card is brought near to the RFID module it reads the data in the card and display on LCD. If the data in the card is matched with the data in the program memory then it compares with that ID code and displays as “ID FOUND” along with his/her name on the LCD. After is a display it records the time at which the person has entered into the premises using REAL TIME CLOCK (RTC). If the data is not matched then it simply displays as “ID NOT FOUND”.

This process can be represented as,

TRACK AGAIN

No yes

CHECKS ANOTHER TAG no

Yes

Figure: Workflow of RFID reader (From RFID reader to LCD System)

CONTROL UNIT CHECKS

TAGS & COMPARES WITH ID

DISPLAY ON LCD

READ TAG

(SIGNAL TRACKING)

STORE IN PROGRAM MEMORY

TAG FOUND

?

TAG MATCHED

?

RFID READER

A COUPLING ELEMENTANTENNA

CONTROL UNITRFID MODULE

(RECEIVER&TRANSMITTER)

The tracker is usually installed in the smart phone of the class teacher as a built-in program. This unique RFID tag or ID is then stored in the SQLite file server. The tag is stored in the SQLite file server against a corresponding student_id which contains the information of individual student. The tag is stored as unique and authorized to every individual student in SQLite file server. This information is later on used to verify the identity of each student of the class and also in providing the overall class performance of a student in various fields. This can also be shown as a performance graph.

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Health Class Performance Extra Curriculum

We are using RFID Tag in various purposes such as, this RFID Tag will represent ID number, Security code number, it will count attendance and it will track the location etc.

Figure: Application of RFID Tag

RFID TAG

ATTENDENCE

SECURITY CODE

ID NUMBER

LOCATION TRACKING

Uniqueness and Innovation:

Although this type of security system using a tracker is much prevailed in the advanced countries, but very few pre-schools and primary schools in our countries have such advanced techniques for the security of their students. Our goal is to initiate a security system using RFID technology which is easy to use and maintain.

Let we have closer look on RFID Technology & Smartphone Technology. Both technologies will make our proposed system unique.

RFID:

Radio Frequency Identification or RFID is a method of identifying unique items using radio waves. The technology has been in the spotlight since Wal-Mart announced its decision to require its suppliers to be ready to track goods using RFID tags in 2005. Other large companies as well as the DoD also made similar announcements. RFID is a promising technology for many corporations that seek to improve their processes, increase productivity and achieve a competitive advantage. However, RFID cannot provide the fullest benefits as a standalone technology. Corporations look for an integrated solution of RFID with their existing infrastructure and wish to smoothly incorporate RFID into their mobile enterprise applications. This report presents an analysis of market potential that emerges from the integration of RFID readers and the wireless phone devices and network infrastructure. The following sections give an overview of the technology, present some example applications, describe the benefits and the challenges for integrating RFID with cell phone technology and discuss the business mode and the market landscape.

Figure: Elements in RFID Reader

RFID MODULE

ANTENNACONTROL UNIT

Technology Overview

There are two main ways to integrate RFID with a wireless smartphone: “A smartphone with RFID tags” and “a smartphone with an RFID reader”. A smartphone with an RFID tag is a handheld device that can connect to GSM or another wireless phone network and has embedded or attached an RFID chip with some identification information programmed on it. Apart from the cell phone antenna used to connect to the wireless network operator, the device also contains an RF antenna to allow for communication with the RFID reader. When the smartphone with the RF tag and the RFID reader are within range they can communicate; the RFID tag information is sent to the reader and the reader can write some information back to the smartphone’s RFID tag. A smartphone with an RFID reader is a handheld device that can connect to the wireless phone network and contains an RFID reader that can collect data from various RFID tags. The smartphone should also include and RF antenna. In the typical RFID scenarios (e.g. in supply chain), the RFID reader is a fixed, static device while the RFID tags are mobile passing through the RFID readers active range. In this case though, the RFID reader is a mobile device that can collect info from mobile or fixed tags. The rest of the report focuses on smartphone technology that is integrated with RFID readers. Exhibit 1 shows the communication network among the different devices. The RFID Tag sends identification data using RF frequencies the RFID enabled cell phone transmits it over the GSM and phone network where it finally reaches the centralized management station. U*sing LAN technologies data is finally stored in the centralized database

Hardware Design

The RFID reader should be closely integrated with the rest of the smartphone components. In terms of hardware, the RFID reader IC and the RF antenna should fit to the size of a handheld device. The power consumption of the reader should be kept in reasonable levels and the RF antenna should not interfere with the smartphone antenna or other devices.

Software Design

The RFID enabled smartphone should include software that will be able reading and writing RFID tags. In addition, it should be easily integrated with call initiation or wireless data transmission so that data collected via the RFID reader can be transmitted over the wireless phone network to a centralized database. It may also require special provisions from the smartphone operating system, to generate alerts, SMS messages etc. Security is also a big concern that the RFID enabled smartphone should address through its software suite. The communication between the RFID tags and the RFID enabled smartphone should be secure. CryptoRF is a company that has developed technologies to address RF security issues using cryptography and authentication.

Standards

There are four frequency bands for RFID communications: Low Frequency, high frequency, ultra-high frequency and microwave. The appropriate frequency for the RFID enabled smartphone depends on the range required by the application for which it is going to be used. In the common case, high-frequency bands that allow communication in a few meters are expected to be appropriate for the RFID enabled smartphone. Different bodies specify the appropriate frequency ranges in different parts of the globe causing incompatibility issues between tags and RFID readers. For example, European standards bodies like ETSI have set different frequency requirements for RFID from USA for health and safety reasons. Hence it is harder for multinational firms to have a consistent infrastructure across the globe [1]. In order to address this issue, RFID-enabled smartphone manufacturers should support multiple standards.

Apart from the frequency standards RFID enabled smartphone manufacturers should comply with RFID data standards. The EPCglobal industry consortium has released the Electronic Product Code (EPC) specification that describes the data stored in a tag [2]. ISO 14443 is another standard used for RFID communication.

Smartphone Technology:

A smartphone is a mobile phone built on a mobile operating system, with more advanced computing capability connectivity than a feature phone.[1] [2] [3] The first smartphones combined the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA) with a mobile phone. Later models added the functionality of portable media players, low-end compact digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and GPS navigation units to form one multi-use device. Many modern smartphones also include high-resolution touchscreens and web browsers that display standard web pages as well as mobile-optimized sites. High-speed data access is provided by Wi-Fi and mobile broadband. In recent years, the rapid development of mobile app markets and of mobile commerce have been drivers of smartphone adoption.

The smartphone world is expanding at a rapid pace. There are already more than 1.08 billion smartphone users in the world, out of which, 91.4 million are from the United States. 

Android:2012 has arrived and the statistics show that smartphone usage and data consumption is only on the rise. The US remains the center of the Android market with the highest total Android smartphone user base and app download volume (50%+ market share), followed by South Korea (9% market share). But the largest markets do not display the highest Android app download activity as Sweden has the most active Android user base with each user downloading about 5 apps/month.

Greater than 50% of the world’s total Android app downloads occur in the U.S. (3.49 billion), making it the largest market as of October 2011 in term so of Android user base and app downloads with South Korea (9%), the U.K., Germany and France next each exhibiting over 20mil downloads/month.

In the month of October 2011 alone the U.S. market share of Android app downloads made up 42.3% (240mil apps) with the UK and Germany beating overall 2nd place South Korea for the month also at 39mil app downloads (6.8%) each.

Android app users in the largest download markets are not the most active app downloaders per user as Sweden, a market with low Android smartphone penetration, has Android users with the most download per user at about 5 apps/user per month followed by the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain, all around 4 apps/user per month.

The lowest Android app downloading markets were China, Japan and Russia, all less than one app/user per month on average, and the major markets averaged 2 to 3 app downloads/user per month.

The report was able to extrapolate four Android app markets based on the frequency of app download/user per month:

Markets with a Relatively High Growth Potential (high app downloads/user with low Android smartphone penetration) – Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic.

Cash Cow Markets (high app downloads/user with high Android smartphone penetration) – South Korea, U.K., Portugal, U.S., Norway, Denmark, Austria.

Very High Growth/Resistant to Change (based on societal factors the market is oppose to change or can exhibit high growth) – China, France, Russia, Poland.

Highly Saturated Markets (low app downloads/user with very high Android smartphone penetration) – Hungary, Finland, Japan.

In October 2011 there were 46k+ Android apps, 21% are paid apps, added to the Android Market, with an average 11k apps released every week compared to the 7.5k released during the summer.

Also, in October 2011 the average price for a paid Android app was US$3.06 and the prices ranged from US$0.99 to US$14.87.

While the latest versions of Android often provide great APIs for your app, you should continue to support older versions of Android until more devices get updated. This lesson shows you how to take advantage of the latest APIs while continuing to support older versions as well.

This section provides data about the relative number of devices running a given version of the Android platform.

Version Codename API Distribution

1.6 Donut 4 0.1%

2.1 Eclair 7 1.7%

2.2 Froyo 8 4.0%

2.3 -2.3.2

Gingerbread 9 0.1%

2.3.3 -2.3.7

10 39.7%

3.2 Honeycomb 13 0.2%

4.0.3 -4.0.4

Ice Cream Sandwich 15 29.3%

4.1.x Jelly Bean 16 23.0%

4.2.x 17 2.0%

Data collected during a 14-day period ending on April 2, 2013. 

Comparison with related projects:

RFID is used in some selected fields such as shopping malls, departmental stores but not as a persistent tracking system. For example in Aaron, Bashundhora city shopping mall, the goods such as shirts or shoes have RFID tags on them. So when someone tries to take any good or product out of the shop without paying for it, the tag is detected by the transceiver set at the shops door or exit and a beep goes on. So the main purpose served here is to prevent shop lifting or theft. But we are trying to accomplish using RFID is much vast and serves more than just identifying tag and notifying using a beep or light. We are willing to use this tag to track the presence of students, to ensure their guardians about their safety and also store this information to provide updates about their prosperity in class.

Track and trace applications are long range or vicinity applications. This technology provides additional functionality and benefits for product authentication. Access control applications are Short range or proximity type of applications. AgileSense Technologies is focused on delivering innovative, high value RFID solutions assisting companies track assets, people and documents. AgileSense provides robust and complete RFID solutions built on top of its extensible middleware/framework for Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing and Aerospace industries.

Asset Tracking:

Static or in-motion assets tracking or locating, like a healthcare facility, wheelchairs or IV pumps in, laptops in a corporation and servers in a data center, was not so easy task.

User can instantly determine the general location of tagged assets anywhere within the facility with the help of active RFID technology. Control point detection zones at strategic locations throughout the facility allow the user to define logical zones and monitor high traffic areas. Tagged assets moving through these control points provide instant location data.

Asset tracking applications will see an almost vertical growth curve in the coming years and the growth rate in this area will be much higher than the growth rate of general RFID market. 

People Tracking:

People tracking system are used just as asset tracking system. Hospitals and jails are most general tracking required places.

Hospital uses RFID tags for tracking their special patients. In emergency patient and other essential equipment can easily track. It will be mainly very useful in mental care hospitals where doctors can track each and every activity of the patient. Hospitals also use these RFID tags for locating and tracking all the activities of the newly born babies.

The best use of the people tracking system will be in jails. It becomes an easy tracking system to track their inmates. Many jails of different US states like Michigan, California, and Arizona are already using RFID-tracking systems to keep a close eye on jail inmates.

Document tracking:

This is most common problem. Availability of large amount of data and documents brings lots of problem in document management system. An RFID document-tracking system saves time and money by substantially reducing:

Time spent searching for lost document The financial and legal impact associated with losing documents.

Government Library:

Many government libraries use barcode and electromagnetic strips to track various assets. RFID technology uses for reading these barcodes unlike the self-barcode reader RFID powered barcode reader can read multiple items simultaneously. This reduces queues and increases the number of customers using self-check, which in turn will reduce the staff necessary at the circulation desks.

Healthcare:

Patient safety is a big challenge of healthcare vertical. Reducing medication errors, meeting new standards, staff shortages, and reducing costs are the plus points of use of RFID solutions. RFID wristbands containing patient records and medication history address several of these concerns.

Another key point to consider is that till now all the RFID based systems that are used in our country face the signal traffic congestion. When there is huge amount of signal to be processed, traffic jam can occur which block the whole process may shut down the system. We would try to overcome this drawback using effective algorithm.

Related Android Apps:

IDBLUE RFID:DBLUE is a leading provider of ultra-mobile, rugged HF and UHF RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Bluetooth® readers for the smartphone and tablet market. IDBLUE’s product line is designed to add value to any organizations mobility infrastructure by offering low cost, high performance, scalable RFID readers. With adoption in Healthcare, Retail, Utilities, Aerospace, Oil and Gas, and many other industries, the IDBLUE product line allows RFID capability to be added to any smartphone or tablet device, maximizing a client’s return on mobility.

Features:•Offers both tag read and tag write functionality•For IDBLUE. HF you can read the unique tag ID, as well as read from and write to the first block of tag memory of an ISO 15693 compliant tag;•For IDBLUE.UHF you can read and write to the EPC memory bank of an IDBLUE-verified EPC Gen 2 compliant tag;•Configurable reader properties including:•Device Timeout•Continuous Tag Scan•Enabled•Timeout•Duplicate Elimination Timeout•Bluetooth Timeout•Disconnected mode (HF)•RFID timeout•User manual preview•‘Factory reset’ function•Compatible with Android 2.3.3 (API Level 10) and higher 

NFC Reader:

Simple app for reading and displaying various tags (NDEF, RFID, FeliCa, ISO 14443, etc.) using NFC (Near Field Communication).The app also supports basic NDEF Push (Android Beam) for people who don't have any tag to read but happen to have two NFC enabled phones. RFID Reader:

RFID Reader Application provides Android platform to interact with the MT-RF800-BT RFID reader, which features tag scanning and reading/writing to tag memory. User may connect MT-RF800-BT via Bluetooth or USB.

IFarmer RFID/EID:IFarmer RFID/EID for NAIT allows farmers and stock managers to meet their NAIT legislative requirements from the convenience of their pocket!Record animal RFID/EID ear tags, visual tag numbers and weights on the fly. Record transaction date, stock types, TB status and other information against each transaction.IFarmer is compatible with, and integrates with, existing Bluetooth capable RFID scanners (including models from AllFlex and Gallagher) and Bluetooth capable weigh scales (including models from TruTest).Record purchases, sales, births, deaths and other animal transfers. Information is sent to NAIT at the push of a button, or by email for your or your farm manager's, records.No more fiddling around plugging RFID scanners in to the computer, manually downloading tags, tripping over cords - IFarmer communicates wirelessly over Bluetooth* directly from the RFID wand and weigh scale to your pocket, and from there to your email inbox and to NAIT.

NFC Taginfo:

Read detailed information from NFC tags and contactless smartcards!Have you ever wondered if you unknowingly carry RFID or NFC-enabled cards in your wallet? Use NFC TagInfo with your NFC-enabled Android device to find them and to check what information they carry.The NFC TagInfo application reads Meta information and data from contactless RFID and NFC transponders. It is an ideal tool for anyone who is curious about the information stored on their Near Field Communication tags.The analysis tool is a must-have for NFC application developers on the Android platform. NFC TagInfo demonstrates the tag-reading capabilities of the Android API. Developers may use this tool to inspect and verify the information on their NFC and RFID tags.

Main features:* Read & visualize basic Meta information on the tag* Read & visualize NDEF message data* Read & visualize raw data (in hexadecimal, ASCII and UTF-8 text encoding)* Read & visualize access conditions* Read & visualize electronic passport (eMRTD)* Save tag information to files

Supported NDEF records:* Text Record* URI Record* Smart poster Record* Generic Control Record* Signature Record

* NFC Geo Record* Android Application Record* other records (basic support)

Supported tags for reading raw data and access conditions:* NFC Forum Type 1* NFC Forum Type 2 / MIFARE Ultra light / NTAG203* my-d(TM) NFC / my-d(TM) move* MIFARE Classic* MIFARE DESFire* MIFARE DESFire EV1 (only limited support)* ISO/IEC 15693 (only limited support)

Additional MIFARE Classic support:* View MIFARE application directory* View value blocks* Try authentication with typical authentication keys* you can setup your own authentication keys* in advanced mode: support for individual authentication keys per sector* in advanced mode: load & save keyset as XML-file

Additional MIFARE DESFire support:* Display data from Clipper cards* Display data from NORTIC cards* Display data from ORCA cards

ISO/IEC 14443 + ISO/IEC 7816-4 support:* Detect ePassport application

ePassport support:* View basic identity card data* View photo (JPEG2000 support using PassportImageDecoder service)* View raw data files* Tested with Austrian/Belgian/Dutch/UK/US passports* Certain passports (e.g. US passport booklet) can only be read while they are opened* In advanced mode: load & save keyset as XML-file

NFC TagExplorer:

NFC TagExplorer comes from AdvanIDe (www.advanide.com), a leading independent provider of semiconductors for the smart card and RFID industry. NFC TagExplorer reads all NFC compliant tags and enables customers to analyze and share tag contents.

With this app, users will be able to share information of the NFC tags and benefit from convergence opportunities. Many NFC related applications are moving towards NFC enabled smart phones thus enabling mobile payments, asset tracking, digital signage, access control, sharing of digital information, etc. Users will also be able review the data in a personalized NFC Tag and use this information to program their own tags. The analysis of the NDEF based command written on personalized NFC tags can be also be incorporated into their NFC based applications.The app is also useful to identify what chip is inside RFID or NFC tags or contactless smart cards. This is in particular interesting for end-users to identify what IC their supplier is using or for card- or tag suppliersto find out what IC their potential customers require.

Key features include:- Scanning of NFC Tags and display of their contents- Creating a list of tags scanned and email it over- Interaction of the users and AdvanIDe's tech support team- Interaction of the users and AdvanIDe's regional sales teamSupported Tags: - NFC Forum Type 1, 2, 3 & 4 Tags- MIFARE Classic - MIFARE DESFire & EV1 (limited information display) - ISO 15693 (limited information display)

As far as the smartphone use is concerned, RFID tracker is used to serve purposes such as opening or closing doors in corporate office, but a full-fledged application of this tracking technology to continuously track a specific individual chip and store the information about the location and using this information to generate a comparison graph are not in vogue. Our project covers all the above mentioned processes and features to provide a complete security package that provides ease and efficiency both.