RFID Based Projects for Engineering Students

Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer information from an RFID tag to the RFID reader for identification purposes. The tags used do not require battery power and in turn, they derive power from the electromagnetic field generated from the reader. Few tags are also available which have their own power source. RFID technology is used in many industrial applications for tracking purposes. For example, it is used in manufacturing industries such automobile industry to track the vehicle during the complete production cycle of it. The RFID tags can also be fixed to books, mobile phones, electronic equipment for tracking purposes. This article discusses RFID based projects for engineering students.

RFID Based Projects for Engineering Students

The radio-frequency is an automatic identification process used for transmitting data between an RFID tag and RFID reader with the help of radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. The RFID tag is a device used to store data of any stuff, persons, books, animals, etc.  RFID tags are of different types some tags can be placed near to the RFID reader and some can read from far away distances beyond the line of sight of the reader.

There are different types of RFID systems in the market that consists of an antenna, transceiver, and a transponder. These systems operate at different frequency ranges like low frequency (30-500 kHz), mid-frequency (900-1500 kHz), and high frequency (2.4-2.5GHz). Let us see one of the example-based applications of the RFID-based-attendance-management system in brief.

Below mentioned are few RFID based projects ideas that will help engineering students to understand RFID technology and to develop various applications out of it. These RFID based projects can be used for multiple applications by just modifying the program burnt in the microcontroller.

RFID Security Access Control System

The RFID system is used to authorize the tag holder to enter a secure area. It reads the data present on the RFID tag and compares it with data present in the microcontroller. If the data is matched, it displays the status of authorizing the entry which is indicated with a lamp coupled with an LCD display. 

Here the RFID card is used, which is inductively coupled to the reader. When the card is swiped against the reader, the modulated data from the card is sent to the reader. This data is fed to the microcontroller.  The card used is the identity card for the particular person and carries his/her details. When this data matches the data stored in the database of the microcontroller, the person is given the authority to enter the secured area. Here this is indicated by the lamp is switched on.

The microcontroller is programmed such that when the data matches with the existing data, the relay driver gets a high logic input at one of its input pins. The corresponding output pin goes low to provide a proper connection to the relay. The relay coil now gets energized and the armature shifts its position such that now the whole circuit is completed and the load gets supply from AC mains and gets switched on. The status of the authority of the person is also displayed on the LCD display interfaced to the microcontroller.

RFID based Attendance System

An RFID tag is used along with the reader to input the details of the employee/ student for tracking their attendance. When the RFID is swiped on the reader, the data of the tag is compared with data in the microcontroller (interfaced to the reader) to identify the user. An LCD is interfaced to the microcontroller to display the name of the user. Additionally, a status button is used to display the overall attendance of the user.

Here an RFID tag is used which is indirectly connected to the RFID reader using the inductive coupling method. As the tag or the card is swiped against the reader, the tag receives a carrier signal from the reader and in turn modulates the carrier signal and sends it back. The reader receives this modulated signal and sends this data to the microcontroller. The microcontroller compares this data with the existing data and on pressing the status push button, the status of the cardholder is shown on the display, indicating the attendance of the cardholder.

RFID based School Attendance System

The aim of this project is to maintain the record of the students’ attendance by using RFID tags. Each student is issued with his/ her authorized tag, which can be used for swiping in front of the RFID reader to record their attendance.

In most of the colleges and schools, attendance is recorded manually – such a process consumes lots of time. In this proposed system, the attendance system is implemented by using advanced wireless technology “RFID”. Only the authorized students are provided with the RFID tags. This tag consists of an inbuilt integrated circuit for storing and processing information. The circuit diagram of the RFID based project for the school attendance system is shown below. The required components used in this project are discussed below.

Microcontroller

AT89C52 Microcontroller from 8051 families is used in this system. It consists of four ports and 40 pins.

Oscillator Circuit

The oscillator circuit is connected between the 18 and 19th pin of the microcontroller and consists of an oscillator with a frequency of 11.0592 MHz and two capacitors of 33pF.

Preset Circuit

The 9th pin of the microcontroller is the RST pin, which is the reset pin. This preset circuit comprises a switch, a capacitor of (10u), and a resistor of 10k. When the switch is pressed, the RST pin is connected to the power supply(Vcc) and the microcontroller gets reset.

LCD Display

The LCD display is used for displaying the data. It consists of 16 pins: three pins are connected to the power supply, and the remaining pins are connected to the port 2 of the microcontroller.

RFID Reader

The RFID reader is a module with an RFID reader and antenna. It is small in size and integrates with any sort of hardware design. It is used to read the data stored in the RFID tags.

Circuit Working

The data stored in this tag is referred to as the identification and attendance of the person. Once the student places the card in front of the RFID reader, it reads the data and compares the data stored in the microcontroller which is programmed by using Embedded C language.

If the data matches, then it displays the information on the LCD. This RFID attendance system also makes use of the status button for retrieving the status of students’ attendance, which is interfaced to the microcontroller. By using this advanced concept, a lot of time can be saved as all the students’ attendance information is directly stored in the database.

Related RFID based Projects/Applications

In addition to the above-discussed project, here we are giving some more RFID based projects or applications of the RFID system to the reader for understanding purposes.

RFID Technology for Device Control and Authentication in Industries

The system is designed to provide security in an organization by allowing only authorized persons to access the secure area. The main priority is the security of any organization. The authorized persons are assigned with  RFID tags that allow them into the secured premises.

The RFID tag consists of an integrated circuit,  which is used for storing and processing the data, modulating and demodulating the radio frequency signal that is to be transmitted. When a person shows the RFID tag in front of the RFID reader and the reader reads the data and compares the data stored in the system.

If the data matches the stored data, the system authorizes the person and allows them to enter into the secured area so that the person can take control of various devices. The system also displays the result on the LCD. If it finds the provided information mismatched then, it alerts an unauthorized entry with a buzzer sounds as an indication of entering or providing wrong information.

RFID Technology For Books Tracking in Libraries

Searching and arrangement of misplaced books is a difficult task often carried out by the library personnel. Many times Librarians busily search the improperly placed books or books wrongly placed by the library users and students in the library of a school, office, or college. And often find this task very difficult.

To overcome this problem, an RFID based project intelligent book tracking system has been developed for monitoring the books in the library through wireless communication between the RFID reader and the books. This system consists of RFID tags and RFID readers to detect the information about the books placed in the library.

RFID Technology for Intelligent Tollgate System

The proposed system performs the following actions such as detecting, billing, and accounting for vehicles as they pass through a toll gate within the frequency range between 30 kHz and 2.5GHz. In this system, an RFID tag is programmed with the vehicle owner’s information in the form with an EPC (electronic product code) that can ensure to read the data at certain distances and detects the vehicle in order to enhance a transaction.

RFID Technology for Authentication of Passport Details

A Passport system can become intelligent enough by the implementation of RFID technology to it. In this system, passport service issues an RFID tag to the eligible citizens, which contains passport details like name, address, nationality, passport number, and other relevant data.

During the time of authentication, the RFID card reader reads that information and compares it with the data stored in the passport database. If it finds to be matched, then it will allow for further precedence, otherwise, it alerts the authorities as fake details.

This project is designed to identify the passenger and display his/her passport details on the display. Each user is allotted with a dedicated RFID tag. This RFID tag when swiped over a reader, access the database on the microcontroller, and displays all the required details of that particular user.

RFID based Paid Car Parking

This RFID based project can also be used to control the entry and exit of cars into the parking system, using the RFID tag. The tag can be used as a credit card where the parking amount is deducted and accordingly the car gets entry to the parking lot. The RFID card of the driver is swiped and the control unit accordingly deducts the amount from the card and displays the parking space number on the display.

RFID based Automatic Door Locking System

This project is used to design an automatic door locking system using RFID. Please refer to this link to know more RFID based Automatic Door Lock System with Arduino

RFID based Library Management System

At present, RFID technology is used in small & medium-sized libraries. By using RFID, library administrator work can be reduced and the user can arrange and search the library books very easily. In this proposed system, there are special techniques are implemented to arrange the books, books, DVDs, journals, and so on. So that users can find out their books very easily. This system overcomes the problem facing by most of the libraries.

RFID based Smart Card Security System

This project is used to design a security system based on RFID. In this project, RFID technology is used in vehicles to provide additional security in tracking the vehicles. These security systems will offer a precise and protected way to give access to different locations such as companies, gated community, secured parking in companies, etc.

RFID based Prepaid Energy Meter Project

This proposed system is used to design a prepaid energy meter project using RFID. This system includes a recharge button depending on the RFID tag given to every user. Every user can recharge their card with some amount and based on the recharge amount, the user will get the recharged unit within their card.

The user needs to swipe the card using RFID Reader which is attached to the energy meter. Once the user swipes the card, then the total & remaining units will exhibit on the display. Here the display is connected with the meter. When the RFID has low units under 2 units then it generates a beep sound.

RFID based Voting Machine

The main objective of this project is to design a cost-effective and efficient voting system. This project is used to reduce the problems in the electronic voting machine. In this project, an RFID reader is used to detect the RFID tags with a unique identity. In the elections, RFID tags including unique identity are allotted for every candidate.

The RFID module is connected to the Arduino controller so that casted votes can be counted, stored, and displayed on the LCD. In order to stop multiple votes, a switch is used, so this project gives an efficient & clear voting procedure.

RFID based Health Care System

In the health department, RFID technology is not only used for reducing health care prices and also facilitates the process of automating & streamlining patient recognition using mobile devices such as smartphones, PDA for designing a management system for health care. This project is used in hospitals, health care departments, etc.

RFID based Bus Announcement System for Blind

This project designs an RFID based project for the bus detection system. The main concept of this project is to give a bus announcement to blind people for ease of traveling. This project is designed with two detection subsystems, one for bus detection and another one for bus stations. In bus detection, the near bus stations will be simply noticed & announced through a voice signal within the bus whereas, in the bus station, the upcoming buses will be noticed & announced in the bus station to give an alert to the blind people.

Some More RFID based Project Ideas

The list of RFID based projects includes the following. These RFID based projects are very helpful for engineering students in doing their project work.

• RFID Application Strategy and Deployment in Bike Renting System
• Consumer Acceptance of RFID Technology: An Exploratory Study
• Application Fields of RFID in Health Safety and Environment Management
• Shopping Path Analysis and Transaction Mining Based on RFID Technology
• RFID Instrumentation in a Field Application
• RF Controller Development and Its Application in Intelligent Transport System
• A Multi-Carrier UHF Passive RFID System
• Transportation Quality Monitor Using Sensor Active RFID
• A Component-based Reconfigurable RFID Middleware
• Parameter Estimation of RFID Network Data Traffic Load
• Adaptive k-Way Splitting and Pre-Signaling for RFID Tag Anti-Collision
• Design and Experiments on Cable Inspection Robot
• RFID based Indoor Antenna Localization System using Passive Tag and variable RF-Attenuation
• The Electronic Passport and the Future of Government Issued RFID based Identification
• Replacing Cryptography with Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Modulation in Secure RFID
• Utilizing RFID Signaling Scheme for Localization of Stationary Objects and Speed Estimation of Mobile Objects
• RFID based project for Library Automation System
• Security Access Control System Using Bar Code Reader
• RFID based Project for Electronic Passport System
• Library Automation Using Bar Code Reader
• Smart Card-based Access Control System
• RFID based Project for Airport Luggage Security Scanning System
• Smart Card based Electronic Passport System
• RFID based Project for Banking System
• RFID based Latch.
• RFID based bus Indicator.
• RFID based Toll Booth Automation.
• RFID based Intelligent Signals.
• RFID based Unmanned Petrol Pump.
• RFID based Car Parking.
• RFID based Hotel Room Management.
• RFID based Person Tracking.
• RFID based CAR for signal break detection.
• A Mobile RFID -Tracking Security System
• RFID based Prescriptions in Automated Pharmaceutical Systems
• RFID based Intelligent Books Shelving System
• RFID based Equipment/Personnel Tracking in Hospitals
• RFID based Valuable Objects Insurance Identification
• RFID based Vehicle Tracking and Monitoring System
• RFID Fare Verification – RFID Bus Pass System
• RFID based Automatic Toll Tax Deduction System
• RFID based Electronic Road Pricing for Controlling the Traffic
• RFID based Event Tracking System for Sports
• RFID based Project for Inventory Tracking System
• RFID based Project for Parts Tracking System for Manufacturing
• RFID based Project for Prepaid Energy Meter with Recharge Option
• RFID based Railway Platform to Display Exact Position of Each Coach
• RFID based Project for Railway Reservation
• Bus Fare Pay System for Passengers
• Medi-card for Patients
• RFID Enabled Passport Verification
• RFID Enabled Voter-ID
• RFID based Projects Ration Card
• Score Card for Industries using RFID
• RFID based Shopping Cart
• RFID based Project Petrol Pump Automation System
• RFID mobile charging system

This is all about the RFID based projects of RFID applications. Check out the list of various RFID based projects to get good practical knowledge in electronics for ECE and EEE students. For any further help regarding this sort of project or any other latest electronic or electrical projects, please contact us by commenting in the comment section given below.

Photo Credits:

• RFID Applications by vandelaysales
• RFID Technology Based Automatic Tollgate System by trak
• RFID Technology For Books Tracking in Libraries by ezinemark