Automatic control of students’ attendance in classrooms using RFID

I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

Authors: Francisco Silva1, Vitor Filipe2 and António Pereira3

1INOV - ESTG Leiria, franciscojjsilva@gmail.com 2CITAB – Department of Engineering, University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, vfilipe@utad.pt 3Superior School of Technology and Management Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, apereira@estg.ipleiria.pt

Overview

• The problem

• Proposed solution

• RFID reader selection

• RFID reader specification

• Proposed system architecture

• RFID Middleware

• Results

• Conclusions and future work

2I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

The problem

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• Registration of all students attendance made in paper in

every class.

• Loss of time for students and the teacher.

• Validation and insertion of data is done manually.

• Lack of knowing exactly the students who attended a

particular class.

• More than 200 classrooms and approximately 3000

students.

Proposed solution

4I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

• Automate the whole system of students attendance registration

using RFID.

• Convert the students identification cards for cards tagged with an

RFID tag.

• Installation of one RFID reader per classroom.

• Find a cheaper reader due the large number of classrooms.

• Connect all readers to the educational institution LAN.

• RFID readers powered by Power over Ethernet (PoE).

RFID reader selection - Different approaches

5I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

• First:

– UHF readers and tags.

– Student is automatically identified as he enters in the classroom.

– Could violate student privacy.

– Very expensive.

• Second:

– LF readers and tags.

– Student need to place his card near the RFID reader to register his presence.

– Cheaper solution.

RFID reader selection - Search for an appropriate reader

6I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

• Cheaper readers work through RS-232, Wiegand or

USB.

• The price suffer a large increase whenever a LAN

interface exists.

• Readers with LAN interface have dozens of extra

features that aren’t necessary.

• Few readers work with PoE.

RFID reader specification

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Proposed system architecture

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RFID Middleware

• Abstraction layer between educational institution’s

data base and servers.

• Dynamic-Link Library (DLL) file.

• Methods to collect necessary information from the

DBMS, from the RFID and web services server.

• Methods return information in XML format.

• Flexibility

I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta 9

Results

10I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

• Test scenario with 5 classrooms.

• All connected to the LAN.

K300 proximity card reader

Conclusions and future work

• Generic architecture of an intra-connected network of RFID readers

within an educational institution.

• The need of an RFID reader that can transmit data acquired over

Ethernet in a distributed environment at a very attractive price.

• Implementation and validation to the whole architecture with one

reader for every classroom.

• Providing more services to automate more educational institution’s

processes.

11I-CENTRIC 2008 October 26-31, 2008 - Sliema, Malta

Questions?

Thank you!