RFID BASED

ATTENDANCE SYSTEM

Prepared by:

Muhamad ‘Azizulhakim Bin Mohamed 2016643574

Asseri
Muhammad Afiq Aiman bin Zulkifli 2016643782
Nurul Nadhilah binti Roslaini 2016644222
1.1 TITLE

The title that we have chosen for our project is RFID based Attendance System.

1.2 ABSTRACT

Most educational institutions' administrators are concerned about student irregular attendance.
Truancies can affect student overall academic performance. The conventional method of taking
attendance by calling names or signing on paper is very time consuming and insecure, hence
inefficient. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based attendance system is one of the solutions to
address this problem. This system can be used to take attendance for student in school, college, and
university. It also can be used to take attendance for workers in working places. Its ability to uniquely
identify each person based on their RFID tag type of ID card make the process of taking the
attendance easier, faster and secure as compared to conventional method. Students or workers only
need to place their ID card on the reader and their attendance will be taken immediately. With real
time clock capability of the system, attendance taken will be more accurate since the time for the
attendance taken will be recorded. The system can be connected to the computer through RS232 or
Universal Serial Bus (USB) port and store the attendance taken inside database. An alternative way of
viewing the recorded attendance is by using HyperTerminal software. A prototype of the system has
been successfully fabricated.
1.3 INTRODUCTION

Student academic attendance is very important since it will affect the students from gaining
knowledge and skills as well as their grades. This project has related about the student attendance
system by tagging their ID card to the RFID reader to confirm their attendance. Nowadays, most
universities and colleges are still using the traditional attendance system which requires student to
sign on a piece of paper every time they attend a class throughout the whole semester. Using the
traditional attendance system, we can obviously see that there are few problems such as it will be
no backup for the attendance records once the lecturer accidentally lost the attendance sheet,
course mate help those who did not attend the class sign the attendance which also known as
buddy-signing as well, hard in analysing and tracking student performances based on attendance
factor, student lack of knowledge and skills due to the poor attendance in attending classes, and etc.
It is important to overcome these problems since it will help in improving the academic performance
of students as well as the teaching environment of the lecturers. Hence, the purpose of carrying out
this project is to prevent unwanted situation occur and to find out the problems that causes these
problems as well as find the solutions to overcome these problems. The past research also stated
that they are having the same problems. So, to overcome those problems many people come out
with new attendance system such as Bluetooth based attendance system, attendance system with
SMS notification, online RFID attendance system (without ethernet), RFID attendance system using
8051 Microcontroller, fingerprint attendance system and etc. With this past research, we come out
with an idea to do a project which is RFID based attendance system using Arduino(UNO) to improve
the old attendance system. As a conclusion, using an electronic based system is better than using a
paper-based system in order to collect, process, store, and produce the attendance results and
perform long-term analysis.
1.4 OBJECTIVE

 Dealing with the old attendance system which the attendance to be taken manually.
 Plan a database that support such a system that has be mentioned earlier
 Improve to a smart attendance that be implemented in classes, laboratory and ect by
combining the software with the proposed hardware.

1.5 PROBLEM STATEMENT

At the moment, most of the attendance systems that are being used in university still are written a
piece of paper. For classes, tutorial and laboratory session the student still has to sign the signature on
the attendance sheet. This method is not flexible because the risk of losing the attendance data is very
high. If the attendance sheet is missing, the attendance data will be lost. Besides that, since the proposed
system also record the time, the lecturer can monitor the punctuality of the students too. Other than that,
an ethical problem maybe occurring such as cheating in signature. For example, a student not attend his
class but his attendance form has been signed by other student. This system is proposed to overcome
these problems.
1.5 LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review can be referring to as a review of current system that the researcher had done in
previous project and the development has been made. Literature review also focusing on the idea
established and knowledge on a topic as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Now, technology
is getting better and modern to replace the old system to make sure the process is organised by
introducing the computerised system. There are few types of attendance system that had been
introduced in school, college, office, laboratory and etc.

1. Bluetooth Smart Based Attendance Management System

In this article “Bluetooth Smart based Attendance Management System” (Riya Lodha et
al./Procedia Computer Science 45, 2015), it is stated that Bluetooth Smart technology is
better to be used since it is an automated identification and data collection technology. It is
accurate and ensures timely entry of data. It come into existence only recently but has
tremendous future scope due to its low cost and compatibility with a large number of
mobile phones, tablets and computers. Bluetooth Smart combines microchip technologies
and radio frequency to create a secure system which can be used for identification,
monitoring and for maintenance of object inventories. Bluetooth Smart systems use tiny
chips called tags. The tags themselves contain and then transmit some piece of identifiable
information to a Bluetooth Smart enabled device. Bluetooth Smart systems can deliver
accurate and precise data about tagged items that improves efficiency and this ability will
bring many other benefits to the business community and to consumers alike in the near
future. In this paper, we present a smart Bluetooth Smart based lecture attendance
management and control system tailored around the Mumbai University (MU) policy of
ensuring a 75% course attendance by students for a course before likelihood of writing a
 semester examination for any course. The application of Bluetooth Smart Technology to
student lectures attendance monitoring problem in our proposal will lead to the creation of
a student database management system that is not manipulated by anyone and not prone
to errors, it will eliminate/reduce the wastage of quality time during manual collection of
attendance, and most importantly it helps in better management of the classroom statistics
for allocation of attendance scores, in a particular course, in the final grading of student
performance.

2. RFID Attendance System with SMS Alert

In the journal of “RFID Based Attendance System with an SMS Alert” (International Journal of
Advanced Research in Electrical, Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, 2017), this
paper focus on the principal purpose to overcome the human errors while recording student
attendance and the formation of a data basic student attendance database system with an
enhanced overall efficiency. The application graphical user interface (GUI) is sketched using
Visual Basic 6.03 and Microsoft Access is used as the database supplier. The Atmel4 AT89S52
is the heart of the system, which is a less-powered high-performance CMOS 8bit
microcomputer with 8K bytes of downloadable flash programmable and erasable read only
memory. A 12-digit number is incorporated on the RFID tag. We have used passive tag.
Whenever the tag is swapped near the reader, because of the induced mutual inductance
energy, data is moved to reader. The data is transferred to the microcontroller, from reader.
Then attendance is taken by the microcontroller if the tag is found to be authenticated. The
RFID tag will be taken in the range of the reader. The reader sends out a power pulse to the
antenna. The system has two antennas, which of these, one situated on the tag and other on
the reader. The RFID reader stores the data which is stored sent by the tag. The stored data
passes from reader to microcontroller and students’ information get displayed on LCD display.
The attendance of the students is maintained and their status is updated to the parents via
GSM. GSM system is used to send SMS to their parents. As soon as the student swipes the
card, the student is asked to enter 4-digit password, by which the door will be opened for that
student. At the same time LCD shows the text as “enter the student”. When student don’t
swipe the card with in specified time, the student get marked as absent. The detailed
information of each student with real time recording is listed on PC by using processing-2.2.1.
And an SMS alert is sent to respective parent, saying that the “xxxx student is absent”.
3. Online RFID Attendance System Without Ethernet

In this article “ONLINE RFID ATTENDANCE SYSTEM (WITHOUT ETHERNET)” (anshul91, 2017)
shows Online Attendance without using Ethernet and GSM modules project. They have
developed this unique project to automate the attendance system for offices, schools and
universities etc. using RFID RC522 Module and Arduino. This project requires low cost. For
Web Support and API, you need PHP and MySQL. The purpose of this project is to remove
tedious process of marking attendance manually. They have visited so many sites but no one
has the solution for marking online attendance without using Ethernet or GSM Module, so
they decided to develop the system without using these components which reduces the
project costing. The system can be connected to the computer through RS232 or Universal
Serial Bus (USB) port and store the attendance taken inside database (MySQL). To view the
recorded attendance, web interface is provided using PHP and HTML. There are 2 types of
RFID Tags. They are Passive RFID Tags and Active Tags. Here, they used Passive RFID Tags
which contains 8-digit number tags inbuilt in it. RFID reader contains a copper winding in
it. This winding acts as an antenna. When a person with RFID tag or transponder enters in
the range of RFID reader, the RF field induces voltage in the coils of tag. The range can be
set by using the appropriate reader of appropriate frequency. This induced field supplies
the voltage in case of passive tags and act as a battery in that case. Due to interaction of
tag with reader 8 characters from tag are sent to controller. These 8 characters are sent to
Arduino via serial communication. Here, Processing software is used to communicate
 between Arduino and PHP Web Application. This processing software read the 8 characters
at serial communication and matched with data stored in DB (MYSQL) by calling PHP Api.
If it is matched then it is replied with valid user and attendance marked otherwise it is
replied with not valid and no attendance marked (Reply from PHP API) on serial you can
view the results (Processing output window).

4. RFID based Attendance System Using 8051 Microcontroller

This article “RFID Based Attendance System – Circuit, Working, Source Code
“(ADMINISITRATOR, 2017) stated that the aim of this project is to design an RFID
Technology based Attendance System using 8051 microcontroller, in which the attendance of
students or employees is automatically recorded with the swipe of a card. The working of the
project is explained here. When this circuit is powered ON, initially the microcontroller will
display the message as Swipe the card on the LCD display. When the RFID reader detects the
ID card, it will send the unique card no to the microcontroller via serial terminal. With the help
of suitable programming, we need to compare the received card no. with the numbers that are
already stored in the microcontroller or any database. Once, if any of these numbers are match
with the received card no., then the corresponding name stored in that no. is displayed on the
LCD display and also the attendance for the name stored in the corresponding number is
marked. By pressing the button, the attendance recording will be closed and the details are
displayed on the LCD repeatedly until the microcontroller has been reset.
5. Fingerprint Attendance System using Arduino

In this article “Fingerprint Attendance System using Arduino” (Engineeering Projects, 2017)
stated that this project is a simple Fingerprint Attendance System using Arduino and can be
very useful for any place where attendance is taken for maintaining register like office, school
etc. The project here utilizes thumb impression for taking attendance. The Fingerprint
Attendance System using Arduino is based on simple algorithm called matching algorithm and
compare with previously stored templets of fingerprint against user’s fingerprint for
authentication. Maintaining a register for attendance is normally used for traditional attendance
system, but it is much more tedious. In this attendance system, user places a finger on the sensor,
the attendance is taken and message is displayed in LCD along with person name.
1.7 METHODOLOGY

The proposed system mainly consists of RFID tag and RFID reader and the overall process is
controlled by the microcontroller. RFID reader is used to detects the tag. These tags have provided to
students with particular ID. As soon as the student with valid RFID card comes near to the RFID
detector, detector will sense the card and collect the necessary information present in the card. The
information is transmitted wirelessly. The received information is then updated in the respective
student’s profile. Microcontroller is used for controlling the events. The major part of this system is
LCD, RFID reader, Tag and microcontroller. Microcontroller is the heart of this system. The proposed
block diagram of RFID based Automated Student Attendance system is as shown in figure 1. It has
shown the main blocks that are being used in the system

RFID Card RFID Reader LCD Display

Push Button Microcontroller

Buzzer
Arduino(UNO)

Blue/Red LED
RTC Module

Power supply
1.8 RESEARCH PLAN

1.9 EXPECTED RESULTS/POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Based on our project, we expect that the system will record the attendance effectively in every class
in order to prevent students skip classes. We also expect that this system helps lecturers in analysing
and tracking student that have low attendance which lead to problems in their academics. We also
hope this system will stop the buddy-signing
1.10 CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, through the problems analysed, the objective of this project is to develop a RFID
based student attendance system in recording their attendance effectively in every class in order to
prevent student skip classes. Next, the developed system will provide the report generation
regarding to the student attendance in order to assist the lecturer/staff in analyse and tracking
student attendance. By implementing the developed system, lecturers will no more facing the empty
classroom every time while they are lecturing in front the stage. Other than that, student will not be
able to ask their buddy to sign for them anymore since the system requires their fingerprint to prove
their attendance in the class. In addition, it will be easier to evaluate and analyse the student
performance based on their attendance since the system will record the attendance more accurately
and efficiently with minimum possible error. Furthermore, student academic performance will
increase as well since they cannot fake their attendance through the developed system which means
they have to attend all the classes in order to prevent them from get bar.

1.11 REFERENCES

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276893195_Bluetooth_Smart_Based_Atten
dance_Management_System
 http://www.ijareeie.com/upload/2017/april/25_RFID.pdf
 http://www.instructables.com/id/Online-RFID-Attendance-System-Without-Ethernet/
 https://www.electronicshub.org/rfid-based-attendance-system/
 https://bestengineeringprojects.com/fingerprint-attendance-system-using-arduino/