RFid Based Attendance Management System

Project Cost: 6,400

Project Code: 1501

Download the Synopsis of the project

Description of the project:

Attendance needs to be taken at various places including colleges, schools for students, and industries. Attendance is mainly required for the login and logout time of employees. Radio Frequency Identification — RFID based attendance management system can be used in any college or university or company. The main objective of RFID based Attendance System project is to take the attendance of students or employees. The microcontroller does the task of storing the attendance of the respective person in the Microcontroller memory.

The existing attendance system is manual and it is taken on paper and it consumes a lot of time. As we are aware that many traditional “Attendance system” uses an attendance register to note down attendance. It has less accuracy. Also, the administrative person needs to maintain the attendance papers/sheets.

In many industries, an attendance register is used to note down the attendance of their employees. In school attendance is taken on roll call musters and in colleges attendance is taken by respective professors. The problem with the existing attendance system is that wrong attendance can be entered. For example, in an industry, an employee can enter an invalid/incorrect login logout time. They can come at 10 am and can enter the time as 8 am. Also in colleges, one student can give proxy attendance of another student. The probability of this is very less but it does happen.

Video of the RFid Based Attendance Management System project:

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Project Photographs:

A detailed description of the RFID Based Attendance Management System project:

We have implemented an automated attendance system that utilizes RFID cards to avoid all such problems. Thus it is RFID based attendance system. In this system, each user, student, or employee will have an RFID card. The RFID reader will be placed on the door or the entry gate of the company or on the door of the classroom or school. Whenever an employee wants to enter in the office; he/she has to show the RFID card to the reader. He/she has to take the RFID card near the RFID reader.

Then the RFID reader will note down the RFID card number and the time at which the employee/student has logged in. And in the same manner, while leaving employee/student has to show the card. So the exit time will be noted.

Commonly used RFID cards are of the size of credit cards and are white in color, these are used in many RFID projects. However, nowadays RFID cards are also available in small or RFID key tags are available. These key tags can be connected to the key chain. And normal RFID cards can be sticked together with the ID card of employees or students. Or we can even print the ID-card information on the RFID card itself. This means that there are no extra efforts required or no extra trouble is caused for carrying this card since students and employees always carry their I-cards in college and industries respectively.

The credit card needs to be swapped or needs to be inserted inside the credit card reader machine. But the RFID card does not need to be inserted, the user just needs to take it near the RFID reader. So students/employees can even keep it in wallets and they can just take the wallet near the RFID card reader without removing the card from the wallet. This way RFID module will read the card information.

Block Diagram:

You will the following documents along with the project:

1. Project Report in doc (word) format
2. Circuit diagram
3. PCB layout
4. Microcontroller program in assembly language
5. Hex file of the microcontroller code
6. Datasheets of all the components / ICs used in the project

Block diagram description:

It contains the following blocks:

1) RFID Reader: Full form of RFID is “Radio Frequency Identification”. Wireless communication is used between RFID tags and RFID readers. The reader does not require line-of-sight communication with tags. It means that Reader detects the RFID tag even if there is some object between Card and Reader. Thus it is a non-contact type of reader. The Radio-frequency used in our reader is 125 kHz which is a Low Frequency (LF). RFID reader interfacing with the Microcontroller is done using a serial port. The RFID reader will communicate with the Microcontroller using serial communication.

When an RFID tag comes in the range of the Reader module, then the RFID reader detects the RFID card. And at that time RFID reader sends out a series of alphanumeric unique codes on the serial port. So while adding the employees/student card number in the program memory. First, we need to store this series of alphanumeric codes in program memory and later on this unique series of codes will be compared with the incoming card number. RFID card reader module requires 9-volt power supply and output is given on the DB9 connector port.

2) RFID cards: There are two main types of RFID cards, Passive and Active. In this project we have used Passive RFID tags. As given in the introduction, we can use normal RFID cards which are of the size of credit card. These are rectangular in shape and white in color and can be attached with the ID-card. Or even we can use RFID tags which can be attached with keychain

3) Microcontroller: It is the main component of the project. It is the heart of the system. Microcontroller communicates with all input and output devices. Various functions of Microcontroller are as follows:
1. Displaying clock on LCD
2. Reading input from RFID reader
3. Comparing it with the data / RFID card number stored in Microcontroller memory
4. Turning on buzzer if the cards does not match
5. Logging/Storing time into memory if cards match
6. Reading input from keypad and adjusting time according to the keypad entry given by user.
7. Sending data to computer.

4) Keypad: We have used 4by 1 keypad. It is a simple type of keypad. It gives low output to Microcontroller when key is pressed. It has 4 keys. Functions of these keys are Increment, Decrement, Enter and Escape. These are used in Time setting mode.

5) Buzzer: We have used 12 volt buzzer for demonstration purpose. Buzzer will be turned on for invalid card access.

6) Liquid Crystal Display: It is used to show current time and various messages. These messages are Invalid card, Valid card, attendance of student. We have used 16 by 2 alphanumeric display.

Working of this project / How to operate this project?

For operating this project, the user has to insert the card numbers into the microcontroller memory. It can be done by a company authority person or a college administration person while issuing the card. Whenever a new student joins or a new employee is recruited in an organization/company at that time, a card will be issued. And same entry will be made in the microcontroller program memory. In the current project, these numbers are stored in the microcontroller’s program memory. This means while burning the program into memory, we need to add these card numbers into the program. Then this card will be issued to the respective person.

Once the project is switched on, it will display time clock on LCD. We have provided “4 by 1” keypad for setting the time. User can press the setting key and use the increment / decrement and enter button to set the current time. Once the time is set then he/she can exit from the time setting mode / time set routine. Then the LCD will display current time set by user.

Then this project operates in normal mode. Whenever user comes near RFID reader module and shows RFID tag then microcontroller will store 2 information or 2 types of data will in the microcontroller memory. First is the card number and second is the time at which user has shown the card. Same situation happens for logout. For logging out also student will show the card. In this project single RFID card reader module will be used for in and out operation. While in actual implementation in industries or colleges, user can install 2 RFID reader modules. One will be placed at the outer side and second at the inner side of the door.

When a student or employee has lost his/her card. Then in such situation he/she has to report this incident to the administration person. Then admin person can remove the card number from microcontroller memory. Also when any employee / student leave the office and they forget to return the card then at time also authority person will remove the card information from microcontroller memory. So in case of lost card or person left the company without returning the card and if these cards are shown to RFID reader then buzzer will be turned on.

Lets take an example that any outside/unauthorized person get a RFID card. And these cards does not have entry in our system. Or if existing employee manages to get a RFID card, and if he/she shows card, then microcontroller will check and find that this card is not stored in the memory. It means card number is not found in microcontroller memory then buzzer is turned on.

We have provided total 7 cards with this system for demonstration purpose. Out of these, 5 cards are valid cards and 2 invalid cards are provided. An invalid card means those cards which do not have information stored in microcontroller program memory.

How to view attendance on computer?

Computer Interfacing with RFID based attendance system:

We have provided PC interfacing to this project, so that attendance of employees can be seen on computer. To view the attendance first administrative person or the user operating this project has to press the Attendance key, then LCD display will display attendance of all students/employees.

LCD will display card number 1, login time then card number 2, login time and so on… It will show attendance of those people who have logged in on that particular day. LCD display is helpful if PC interfacing is not available. This means the Computer is not near the system. In PC interfacing, Data is sent to computer as soon as it is shown on LCD display.

Various software is available to view data received on the serial port. On computer, we can use hyper terminal software or we can use terminal software to view the data received on the computer. Later user can copy this data into another file or he/she can directly take the printout. PC interfacing will be useful when the data is very large or when the employee number is very large. At that time attendance monitoring on LCD becomes very time-consuming and is not easy. However, data for all employees can be viewed on the computer at a faster rate and very easily.

Applications of RFid Based Attendance Management System:

1. This project can be used in various software companies, production industries, and many other industries to take the attendance of employees. Presently many of these companies have attendance registers or muster which is a traditional and old way of maintaining attendance. We can replace it with an automated system for taking the attendance of employees.
2. It can be used in colleges, various educational institutes as well as university campuses for taking the attendance of students. Education institutes have roll-call muster or teachers take attendance and note it down manually on paper. We can replace it with our automated attendance system using RFID.
3. It can be used in shops and shopping malls for the attendance of employees and workers.
4. We can also use it to note down the in and out time of vehicles. With a little bit of modification, this project can be used in vehicle/car parking systems. If parking charges are charged on an hourly basis, we can use this project to note the exact in and out time of the car to find out the total and exact parking charges of that particular vehicle.

Advantages:

1. This system is fully automated and it does not require any human interaction except setting the initial time setting.
2. LCD and PC interfaces both are provided with an RFID-based attendance system. This gives the benefit of viewing attendance on the spot on LCD or remotely from a computer.
3. This system is accurate and can avoid proxy or false attendance.

Future Development:

1. We can voice announcement system in this project. So whenever a user logs in, we can announce messages like, “Your attendance has been logged in” or “Your card is invalid”.
2. We can send this data through the internet to the user. So that users can access it remotely via the internet.
3. We can implement GSM technology. So this project will be advanced to RFID Attendance System With SMS Notification.

Questions and answers about this project:

Question: How many RFID cards are provided with this project?

Answer: We will provide 7 RFID cards. 5 are valid and 2 are invalid.

Question: Can you implement an SMS alert in RFID attendance? Or can we use email on computer software?

Answer: Currently we have not implemented computer software for sms or email. Instead of that we can send SMS directly through microcontroller by using GSM modem.