International Journal For Technological Research In Engineering

Volume 3, Issue 9, May-2016 ISSN (Online): 2347 - 4718

IMPLEMENTATION OF RFID USING ESP8266 A LOW COST

DEPLOYMENT DEVICE
Prathik Pai P1, Deepanshu Madan2
Computer Science and Engineering, The National Institute of Engineering, Mysuru, India

Abstract: The tremendous growth in the ecommerce 3) Low Power Specification

industry, manufacturing sector and supply chain 4) Pre-Formatted Data Output for Lesser Calculation
management plays a key role in supporting the
transportation of goods and tracking of the current status of III. DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS
materials. Goods attached with RFID tags are the currently The system consists of the following sub components
trending way of accounting the whereabouts and deriving namely,
more information through attached software system. For 1) RFID Reader: There are various types of RFID Systems
the widespread use of RFID system whether in a huge such as active and passive. In our application we are using
manufacturing sector, supply chain system or a small scale passive cards, which are powered by the reader and do not
industry, the cost of deployment needs to be at the minimal. emit its own energy. The module chosen is EM-18 due to its
Thus with the introduction of a low cost model of RFID serial interface in nature and working at 125Khz. The
reader with wireless/wired capabilities and local storage maximum distance of activity is 10cm i.e. the range of
using low powered SoC ESP8266 WiFi module along with detection. The Em-18 has a GPIO port named BUZZ which
EM-18 Serial RFID reader would effectively reduce the activates as soon as a card is read.
overall cost of deployment.
Keywords: RFID Reader, ESP8266, SoC WiFi, Supply
Chain Management, Tracking, Ecommerce delivery, EM-
18

I. INTRODUCTION
In the Internet Age, due to the massive adaptation of wireless
technology, every individual or a industry expects a world
without hassle of wires. Thus wireless communication
devices, working on different protocols are adapted at a
colossal rate. One such popular device is WiFi which is
around us all the time either in schools, colleges, industries,
leisure places etc with industry standard encryption facilities.
On the other part, due to the enormous growth in the
2) ESP8266: In recent years, ESP8266 had a massive
manufacturing sector and Ecommerce industry, the supply
adaptation among DIY enthisiast due to its low cost and
chain has to be extremely efficient and transparent. Due to
high performance 32bit application processor compared to
this transparency, it is observed that more transactions crop
MCU in the same segment along with a integrated TCP/IP
up. Thus customer satisfaction is the epitome of success in
stack based WiFi. It has Capabilities such as WiFi hotspot,
these industries. In recent trends, RFID technology has
Peer to Peer Communication and combined mode as a STA
gained wide spread acceptance due to the easy operation and
and AP. The ESP8266 can be operated in 2 modes, either
varied ranged operations.
using AT commands or firmware programming. In the
context of current implementation we are using firmware
II. DESCRIPTION
programming through Arduino IDE modified for ESP8266
There are many Wireless RFID Solution providers but the
series.
key factor is the pricing and versatility of the product. It
consist either LAN interfaces or Wired Serial interfaces or
Wireless interfaces but not many vendors provide the
combination of both the worlds. Even if they provide the cost
will be enormous for its versatility.
The device helps in easily identifying the RFID tags and
passing the information to the software end of the solutions
which maintained by third party.
The main advantage of the proposed system is
1) Low cost of Deployment A. System Architecture Overview:
2) Easy communication standard interface The system contains a EM-18 Module, ESP8266 Serial WiFi

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International Journal For Technological Research In Engineering
Volume 3, Issue 9, May-2016 ISSN (Online): 2347 - 4718

module, Depending on the design a battery Circuit and The device is switched on when power supply of 3.3v with
battery. Em-18 Module Sends the data to MCU of ESP8266 atleast 1A is connected. The device attempts to connect to
when a card is read. ESP8266 processes it and forwards to the designated WiFi Router. If it fails, it will attempt again in
the server via a TCP connection through WiFi. a specified time interval which depends on the quality of
router. If the connection is successful, it waits for the RFID
(EM-18) to read a card. When the card reading is sucessful, a
buzzer beep is encountered along with that the UART port of
ESP8266 collects the data in bytes and converts them into
string. After successful collection of data a TCP connection
is initiated to the responsible server. After the
acknowledgement of successful TCP connection, the data is
sent using HTTP Get Method with the Data appended at the
end. After the acknowledgement from the main server the
Fig 2.5 TCP connection is closed to reduce the network overhead
since the reading of RFID cards are not too frequent. After
the closure of TCP connection, the System again waits for an
RFID input and the process continues.

IV. APPLICATIONS
Fig 2.5
 Access control system in offices, schools and
The detailed description of Circuitry is as follows
applicable places.
 Connect the VCC to CH_PD of ESP866 and short
 Attendee or attendance tracking in Events, schools
the VCC of EM-18 to VCC of ESP8266.
and applicable places.
 Short the GND of Both Modules
 Logistics and supply chain visibility in ecommerce
 Connect the Tx pin of EM-18 to RXD pin of
industry.
ESP8266
 Interactive Marketing and laundry Management.
 Optionally the VCC and GND can be connected to a
DC adaptor or a battery circuitry.
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
Note: The Range of the WiFi module can be extended by
A versatile RFID device with wireless capability capable of
changing the antenna from patch type.
interfacing with variety of devices and software where in
data manipulation can be maintained in the software system
itself. Due to the low cost of deployment, every individual
having a small to large shops can accommodate for billing,
tracking and variety of custom purpose application as
applicable to them. Some of the future enhancements are to
include a local storage in the device in order to save data
when the main server is disconnected. To include a real-time
clock module which stores date and time locally and one
device various interface concept. Making the system modular
i.e. plugnplay wireless capability or LAN capability.

REFERENCES
Fig 2.6 [1] https://store.robokraft.com
B. System Flow Overview: [2] blog.atlasrfidstore.com/what-is-rfid-used-for-in-
applications
[3] www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?7797
[4] https://www.omni-id.com/pdfs/RFID_Tag
_Implementation_Testing_Deployment_Guide.pdf
[5] http://www.rfidarena.com/2013/11/14/benefits-of-
implementing-rfid-in-supply-chain-
management.aspx

Fig 2.3

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