Library & Attendance Management System using RFID

Intro

The existing ID Cards at NITK serve no other purpose rather than proof of identity that a student is part of the institute. This brings us to the question, can we do better? With just INR 400 in hand, the answer turned out to be yes!

But how?

It's simple: RFID tags. For as low as INR 25 per card, a student can gain access to a whole new world of convenience. Using the Texas Instruments MSP430 microcontroller, along with a standard RFID-RC522 reader, and some other generic components, we were able to fashion the electronic a.k.a. hardware component of our project. For software, we wrote Python3 scripts that mimic them. Thus, we have demonstrated three modules where our project can be implemented, i.e.

• Check-in & Check-out
• Library
• Attendance

Check-in & Check-out module:

By just powering the MSP430 with any power supply (even a power-bank works!), students can check in and out of a location with ease by holding their new ID card over the scanner. If the setup beeps once, then he's good to go. If it beeps three times, the guards can be alerted and necessary action can be taken. This is particularly useful in the event of counterfeit cards being made to bypass the system, because only the administration can modify the list of RFID UID's allowed.

Library module:

The Library module eliminates the need for four issue cards as well as a separate Library ID card by using this new ID card to handle issuing and returning of books. A Python script along with a CSV file acting as a database acted as a very good prototype to demonstrate the tasks of the Library Manager at a basic level. In the future, this can be expanded to an actual application with an interface.

Attendance module:

Similar to the Library module, course lecturers can act as Attendance Managers for the Attendance module. When the new ID card is swiped, the lecturer can choose to mark the student present or absent. Issues like proxies do remain, but by letting one student in per beep, this can greatly reduce the chance of such events.

What next?

This project is a good showcase of how NITK students could use these new RFID-enabled ID cards. But it doesn't stop here. In the future, thanks to the simplicity and ease-of-use of the project, the following modules are possible:

• Mess Module
  Useful in reducing paper usage and also can provide statistics of mess visits
• Integration with e-wallets like ChangePay
  This is to provide a payment solution with just your ID card
• Integration with the IRIS portal
  One outcome of this is to be able to view details of a person using kiosks or NFC-enabled phones

Conclusion

To summarise, this project was the result of a 24-hour hackathon conducted at a college level with basic workshop training beforehand. With time and effort, it should be able to fully mature into a product that can be used across a wide range of institutions, while bringing down paperwork and human intervention. We welcome any inputs that you may have as comments.