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Using NFC, RFID Arduino, and iBeacons to Automate The
Development of Indoor Monitoring Framework Applications
Developed: Abdulaziz Almas Supervised: Esther Palomar Coordinated: Emmett Cooper
Birmingham City University
Near Field Communication (NFC ACR122U Reader)
Near field communication (NFC) and iBeacons have shown a
prominent niche in mobile industry and more. In particular, these
technologies are now paving the way for a number of indoor
location monitoring applications improving navigation or risk
mitigation as well as reinventing the mobile advertising, and app
development industry. NFC was recommended for its moderate
cost. Some studies show that its benefits outweigh its drawbacks.
The technology highlights security due to its short communication
transmission range so will soon dominate the way consumers
secure coupons and deliver payments. Moreover, NFC was
variously implanted in many attendancesystems for schools,
universities and in multiple businesses for a variety of reasons as
in (Figure 1). It brought mobile integration, secure access control
with moderate low cost for some countries. It could be said that
NFC is one of the best choices for novice users due to its simple
usage.
The project also explores the application of Estimote Stickers:
Small wireless Bluetooth sensors that can be attached to any
location or object. Stickers and smartphone communicate
throughApple iBeacons that are used to build a new generation
of mobile apps that connect the real world to the user smart
device as illustrated in (Figure 2).
RFID Arduino
Another exploration of the project was RFID (Radio-Frequency
Identification) Ardionu technology. The findings of this technology
might cost less than NFC. It could be the future of adapting
monitoring applications. However, further research and testing is
need to confirm the statement. This paper describes the
development process and evaluation of an automatic indoor
location application and attendancesystem. The description is
based on the implementation of NFC, iBeacons and RFID
Arduino. This project report is especially useful to provide location
and attendanceinformation avoiding the obligation for users to
manually select information in order to make attendancerecord
or indoor location a user as attempted in (Figure 3).
Figure 3
METHODS
The research describes the application that supports an
automatic card swipe on a well-known technology such as NFC
(Near Field Communication). It presents iBeacons and RFID
Arduino as alternatives technologies that could automate the
systems through sensors and wearables. Previous papers
highlighted the security side of NFC. Varication of the secure
read/write data operation was proven in (Ok et al. 2010). Dhar
and Dasgupta (2014) showed the prevention provided against
hacking due to the short communication range. It increases
security by reading/writing data within 4 or less cm using passive
tags. However, cost is still a major disadvantage. Due to these
reasons, NFC was chosen in the project development process.
The project is implemented in a real scenario and the paper also
shows the prototypes evaluation.
This project main contributions are threefold objectives:
•DevelopingAutomatic Attendance (Back-End)
•Migrating Development to Website (Front-End)
•Developing and Migrating Indoor Location
Agile methodology took over the development methodology
especially in testing phase due to rapid prototyping
RESULTS
The project explored multiple technologies to achieve its aim and
objectives. The findings of the development process delivered
most of the proposed objectives. The attendancemonitoring
system was automated programmatically as in (Figure 1). A
website was developed and integrated attendancerecords as in
(Figure 4). Due to lack of NFC unique identifier feature, indoor
location application was not automated with ACR122U. For that
reason, an NFC manual application version was developed.
It was recently discovered, that some technologies were suitable
more than others.A premature commitment was made to develop
an indoor location monitoring map prototype of iBeacons as in
(Figure 5).
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In Future, iBeacons are recommended for SDK and community
support in automating attendanceand indoor location. The
technology has been adapted as shown in (Figure 2). The
technology development and implantation is suited for
companies. A security analysis research should be conducted
before development stage.
RFID Arduino might be the alternative of NFC due to its low cost
and open programming functionalities in its IDE. The prototype is
shown in (Figure 3).
CONCLUSION
SOURCES
CONTACT INFO
NFC technology shaped the words into pictures. It could be said
the project would not have brought its aim and objectives without
its literature review. The findings of the project research assisted
delivering the threefold objectives. Although the interesting
challenge was not fully complete, the result is getting closer to it.
The limitation of the NFC ACR122U reader led to exploring other
technologies. The scalability of iBeacons shown its ability to be a
replacement of NFC in indoor monitoring. The technology is
promising and can fulfill the tasks of attendance and indoor
location use case. iBeacons are cross platform which they helped
making a demo.
However, the price could be an issue for others. For that case
RFID Arduino was approachedto be the backup.Although the
costs of development using Arduino are not high, more time is
needed for non-electronic background developers. The
technology required understandingof processing language for it
to be used. Some technologies were supported more than others.
The NFC tools and supported technologies were one of the main
reasons for its success. The Agile methodology aided the
process of testing and saving time, but not money. The evolution
of the product has shown how qualitative the project was in its
back-end and front-end. It highlighted the security analysis of
NFC technology which was experimented. The project strongest
element is the learning outcome. Learning Python, regex and
becoming familiar to stack overflow is a huge learning
experience. Finally, computer scientist could be labeled after
developing the project independently.
Gmail: abdulazizalmass@gmail.com Uni: abdulaziz.almas@mail.bcu.ac.uk
Figure 2
Figure 1
iBeacons
Figure 4
Figure 5
Dhar, S. and Dasgupta,A., 2014. NFC Technology: Current and
Future Trends in India. 2014 International Conference on
Contemporary Computing and Informatics (IC31). pp.639-640
OK, k. et al., 2010 a. Current Benefits and Future Directions of
NFC Services. International Conference on Education and
Management Technology (ICEMT 2010). pp.334-337
Opperman, C. and Hancke, G., 2011. Using NFC-enabled
Phones for Remote DataAcquisition and Digital Control. The
Falls Resort and Conference Center, Livingstone, Zambia, 13 -
15 September 2011.
Sakpere, W. et al, 2013.A Near Field Communication Framework
Navigation. An NFC-Based Framework for Indoor Navigation.
pp.459-460
Franssila, H., 2010. User experiences and acceptance
scenarios of NFC applications in security service filed work.
Second International Workshop on Near Field
Communication.pp.39-43