Internet of Things with RFID Based Microcontroller for

Monitoring System

Noramalina Abdullah, and Sarah Madihah Mohd Shazali

School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Universiti Sains Malaysia, Engineering
Campus 14300 Nibong Tebal, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
eenora@usm.my, sarah@yahoo.com,

Abstract— Most of the current attendance systems in schools are based on manual
data entry, which is time-consuming. Over the last few years, the demand of radio
frequency identification (RFID) systems has been an increase in the number of appli-
cations in different areas. This research developed an RFID system that uses a micro-
controller to monitor students has been developed. An Arduino microcontroller was
programmed to facilitate automatic wireless identification using electronic passive
tags. The system is suitable for the readers based on RFID technology. As the infor-
mation was stored in external memory and the database was created using MySQL,
the Arduino-based RFID system was linked to an Android application. Four passive
tags containing student information were used to test the system, whereby the system
was only able to detect one tag at a time. Data manipulation and retrieval occurred via
a graphical user interface (GUI). System that embedded with RFID technology for
student monitoring can eliminate time wasted during the manual collection of attend-
ance. It also offers an opportunity for administrators to record activities and timeta-
bles.

Keywords: Radio Frequency Identification. Microcontroller. Arduino. Monitoring.

Android Application.

1 Introduction

In recent years, the use of RFID technology has gained popularity on a global scale.
This technology allows the identification of an object, enabling it to be manipulated
by a system. According to Al-Lawati et. al [1], environmental monitoring through
RFID tags or wireless networks has reached an advanced stage of development, and
one of the areas of application is keeping records of attendance in organization. The
traditional attendance system is known to be time-consuming as it manually records
the students’ attendance. A school attendance monitoring system is crucial. After all,
with an intermittent situation such as the contagion of disease, parents should aware
where their children being held.
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The current cumbersome and traditional methods of taking the attendance calls for
some improvement in managing the system, which is by replacing it with
computerized system using RFID technology. Apart from using RFID technology,
there are several technologies which has been proposed for replacing the current
attendance system such as by using biometrics. Hasan, et al. [2] and Feng, et al. [3]
has proposed the usage of fingerprint scanner in tracking the attendance and also to
prevent the attendance fraud. However, due to the current on-going pandemic, where
physical contact needs to be minimized at all cost, this approach was deemed to be
unsuitable. Facial recognition-based attendance system was also proposed to be used
as it is precise and can helps to avoid cheating on attendance [4]. Despite its
advantages, there are few disadvantages, such that these biometrics-based systems
used larger storage space in order to store images and also it requires longer times to
process the biometrics features [5]. Due to these problems and the overall cost of the
systems, RFID technology was more preferable.

RFID is not something new and was commonly proposed as one of the approaches
used for tracking attendance. Shah, et al. [6] and Irawan, et al. [7] proposed the usage
of RFID technology with Internet of Things (IoT), in taking the students’ attendance
and allowing the data to be collected and fetched from the database in the cloud. The
students were required to scan their RFID tag to the reader at the school gate for the
system to record their attendance. Akbar, et al. [8] also proposed an RFID-based
attendance system and the security of the system was further enhanced by combining
the RFID technologies with face recognition system. The reader can be installed
inside the school bus. Ammar, et al. [9] also proposed a school bus tracking and
monitoring system which allows the system to record the student attendance and
location when they swiped their RFID tag on the reader in the school bus. Similarly,
Prasad, et al. [10] also proposed the usage of RFID reader in the school bus in order to
track the students’ attendance and location. His system also incorporated the GSM
module in order to update the student location to the cloud and to send SMS to the
parents on the child’s location and attendance. Apart from having lower cost to
produce, other advantage of using RFID systems is that the passive tag can be read by
the reader as long as it is placed close enough for the reader to detect.

2 Methodology

The RFID-based monitoring system presented about student monitoring and activities
logging. The location of the student is known based on the last time the tag was detected
by the reader. Hereby, the reader is placed at the school entrance or classroom and the
student is required to swipe their card in the reader when arriving at school and before
going home. The reader records the times when the student arrives, and leaves school
based on the last time they swiped their tag on the reader, as shown in Fig 1.
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Figure 1. Flowchart of the system

Thus, if the parents intended to know whether the student has arrived or has left the
school, they can send an SMS requesting the status of the student; the status is provided
based on the last time their children swiped the tags. In this system, the tag needs to be
hold by the students either using a lanyard or keep in the hand. Students are required to
swipe their tag again before leaving the school, at which point the system automatically
sends a message to the parent, informing them that the student has left. The activities
log is also sent. In principle, the reader will generate an electro-magnetic field which
induces a current into the tag’s antenna. The current is used to power the chip. Once the
chip was activated, it will receive the instruction from the reader and replies by sending
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Fig 2. RFID reader circuit Fig 3. SIM900A connected to Arduino UNO

The Arduino microcontroller is used to interface the reader and the microSD adapter at
the classroom door. The tag is detected by the RFID reader module, which is an
MFRC522, and the information is stored on the memory card. The RFID module uses
four smartcard samples containing the information of four different students. The data
from the tags are stored in the memory card by connecting a microSD to the system.
The data in the microSD card are later updated into the database. The complete circuit
for the module is shown in Fig 2. This system cannot be considered as a real-time sys-
tem as the data are not sent directly to the server. The information on the server is only
updated once the server is connected to the memory card. The SIM900A is sufficient as
it allows the sending and receiving of SMS. The shield only required a SIM card and an
antenna. The connection between the GSM shield and Arduino UNO is shown in Fig 3.
There are three types of RFID, namely passive, semi-active, and active. This project
uses an MFRC522 RFID reader, a high-frequency RFID (HF RFID), and a module op-
erating frequency of 13.56MHZ. To execute the editable program, the Arduino libraries
for the MiFare RC522 was available and can be downloaded from the Arduino website.
The library includes Read/Write and other features as well. The test used 4 samples of
smartcard which contains information of four different students as shown in Fig 4. The
tags contain the details of each student such as name and ID. The numbers written on
the card is the unique serial number. The serial number are personalized and fixed for
every tag, and only the information in the card can be modified. The reader and tag were
tested by using simple circuit which used the LED as an indicator. Once the reader de-
tected the smartcard, the LED will light up. The data from the tags were stored in
memory card, by connecting MicroSD to the system.

2 Results and Discussion

Based on the data obtained from the microSD card, the number of days that the stu-
dents attended the class is updated to the database, as shown in Figure 5. The sample
duration is 24 days. The data received from the database are uploaded to the applica-
tion on the parents’ smartphones. A GSM module is also used under the consideration
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that some parents may be unable to install the application. For the GSM module, the
circuit is simulated in Proteus ISIS, board, and the result is displayed on the virtual
terminal. For the simulation, SIM900D is used instead, based on the libraries availa-
ble. For real-time implementation in the future, instead of using a database, data from
the classroom’s reader can be transmitted wirelessly to the main server, which is lo-
cated in the school and can immediately update the data in the application. Further-
more, the system presented here only allows one tag to be read at a time.

Fig 4. Smartcard sample Fig 5. Database in MySQL

Fig 6. Complete circuit for RFID reader Fig 7. List of available features

4 Conclusion
This research aimed to support the teachers and lecturers to monitor their students.
The parents will also gain benefit from the outcomes. Compared to previous research-
ers, this research has improved the visibility of outcomes, cheaper cost, and easy han-
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dling of the smart card. This report also offers the alternatives of using GSM modules
through the implementation of an Android application that is installed on parents’
smartphones. The attendance information available on the application is hereby up-
dated based on the data recorded by the RFID reader, thus allowing parents to keep
track of their children’s attendance and school activities. Furthermore, we believed
that the finding of this research can be extended for wider application such as moni-
toring patients at hospitals and employees at working place.

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