Tuijin Jishu/Journal of Propulsion Technology

ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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RFID based attendance system with SMS Alert

1
Shashank S., 1Kushal K., 1Abhay Surya Shankar, 1Madan Kumar G.,
2
Dr. Pavithra G., 3Dr. Sindhu Sree M., 4Padmavathy M., 5Dr. T. C. Manjunath*

1
First Year (Second Sem) ECE Students, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engg.,
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka
2
Associate Professor, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engg.,
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka
3
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engg.,
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka
4
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engg.,
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka
& Research Scholar, School of Electronics & Communication Engg.,
Presidency University, Bangalore, Karnataka.
5
Professor & Head, Dept. of Electronics & Communication Engg.,
Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bangalore, Karnataka

*Corresponding Author : Dr. Manjunath, Ph.D. (IIT Bombay), Sr. Memb. IEEE, FIETE, FIE,
Email : tcmanju@iitbombay.org
Abstract

RFID technology is an automatic wireless identification system that works by the help of active and passive
cards and a reader. In this work we have tried to ease the problem of manually taking attendance with the use of
RFID technology. This system will help the authority manage the attendance system in a more organized,
efficient and time saving manner. The proposed method has been implemented in a prototype system that has
proved the effectiveness of the system in easing the chores of attendance taking as a result of the automation of
the system using the RFID technology. The design of the system is simple, inexpensive and portable making it
a good candidate for commercial and academic purpose

Introduction

Most institutional authorities are concerned by the laborious process of manually tracking staff attendance. Many
applications on web and mobile have been deployed but still many manual signings attendance record exists at
non-internet connections environment which documentation takes a long time and risky. The problem is some
attendance records were missing while staff indicated that they have log in. Thus, an attendance monitoring using
RFID has been proposed. This research has designed an RFID-based attendance tracking system that uses an RFID
card to uniquely identify each employee or student’s attendance with LED authentication. The method to develop
the system is comprised of hardware and software components such as RFID cards, RFID reader model RC522,
buzzer, and LED. Users’ attendance record is collected whereby users touch the RFID card on the RFID reader.
Data for three different locations was collected and analyzed. Result has identified that the RFID system is faster
in 20 seconds which is 80% performance compared to manual attendance. This study is significant for attendance
reporting which is automatically synchronized with a real-time clock and the attendance records is more accurate
and would help the administration monitor the staff attendance at the non-internet connections environment [1].

Information Technology (IT) has played a significant role in developing several aspects in academic sectors and
domains such as student monitoring and management systems [2].

Attendance or daily register of understudies has turned into a vital assessment perspective in the current instructive
framework in both universities and schools. The conventional attendance monitoring framework has a few

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ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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impediments with the trend and the technology gap. For instance, passing the everyday attendance sheet to a huge
number of students in a class is extremely risky and it hampers the consideration of the students in the class. It is
waste of time as well as a student can deliberately enlist counterfeit attendance record in the day-by-day attendance
sheet. On the off chance, if the teacher loses these documents, all the significant attendance records are lost without
doubt [3].

Therefore, it is a critical subject to tracking and manages student’s attendance in school, college, and university
environment. Since it can be helped to urge students to attend on time, amend the efficiency of the learning,
increase learning grade, and finally boosting and improving the education level. So, there is a need to manage the
student attendance records automatically by using information technology management system in a faculty to
assist the maintaining attendance. Biometrics techniques are used to verify identification through their
characteristics like face recognition, signatures, fingerprint, voice recognition, irises, barcode, Bluetooth, Near-
Field Communication (NFC), and RFID and so on [4].

RFID innovation has a tremendous task to carry out in the completion of the vision of associating objects around
us to the internet. These items extend from huge structures, modern plants, planes, vehicles, machineries, any sort
of merchandise, and explicit pieces of a bigger framework to people, animals and plants and even explicit body
portions of them. The idea driving this is called Internet of Things (IoT) [5].

Literature survey

In this project, I did a literature review and took some paper for the reference as follows [6].

Attendance and Information System using RFID and Web-Based Application for Academic Sector.

Paper - 1 : Hasanein D. Rjeib. Nabeel Salih Ali, Ali Al Farawn, Basheer Al-Sadawi., Haider Alsharqi.

Journal & Published: Article in International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications & January
2018

Findings: A student attendance and information system are designed and implemented to manage student’s data
and provide capabilities for tracking student attendance, grading student marks, giving information about
timetable, lecture time, room number, and other student-related information. Also, the proposed system provides
easiness for the staff where there is no need for extra paper works and additional lockers for saving data.

Research Gap: Much complicated being web-based application. Only students’ data is involved, can be used for
other staffs and faculties.

Paper – 2 : A RFID based (IoT) automatic attendance system: A survey analysis

By: RKAR. Kariapper1, MS. Suhail Razeeth.

Journal & Published: Southeastern University of Sri Lanka, Oluvil & April 2019.

Findings: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a very advanced technology for automatic attendance system,
and it provide very higher accuracy and speed than a traditional paper-based system. And it says that RFID is a
best replacement of traditional method without any doubt.

Research Gap: Eventually from this study I got to know that each system we has its own advantages and
disadvantages. Some characteristics are good for some system, and some 4 are not. To overcome this, a hybrid
model is necessary, and which merely provide higher efficient system without any disadvantage.

Like this, a large number of papers were studied & here only the base papers are being presented.

Objectives

• To provide very higher accuracy and speed than a traditional paper-based system.
• To provide security and easy tracking of data.

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Tuijin Jishu/Journal of Propulsion Technology
ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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• Implement fully automatic process.

Problem Statement

The conventional methods of recording attendance of the student in most of the schools and colleges is majorly
in the written form or hard document.

Hard copies are always not safe and the data of the student can be lost any time due to accidents that occur in
school or college premises, in order to avoid all these types of problems an RFID Based attendance system could
be a more viable option for any institution or organization to adopt this project module.

Mostly parents of students are much worried of about their children reaching the school. In order to remove such
confusions in the parents the best method is to adopt an attendance system consisting of SMS alerts to parents of
respective students would be the best idea. Whenever the student scans his/her RFID tag, the message directly
reaches out parents and would give them a trust worthy message that his/her son/daughter is reached safely to the
school.

Block diagram, Circuit Diagrams and Working principle, Algorithms, Flow-Charts & DFDs

Fig. 1 : Block-diagram of the proposed methodology

Fig. 2 : Circuit Diagram

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Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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Pin No. Pin Name Description
1 Vcc Used to Power the module, typically 3.3V is used
2 RST Reset pin – used to reset or power down the module
3 Ground Connected to Ground of system
4 IRQ Interrupt pin – used to wake up the module when a device comes into range
5 MISO MISO pin when used for SPI communication, acts as SCL for I2c and TX for UART.
6 MOSI Master out slave in pin for SPI communication
SCK
7 Serial Clock pin – used to provide clock source
8 SDA Acts as Serial input (SS) for SPI communication, SDA for IIC and Rx during UART

Table 1: RFID-RC522 Pin configuration

RFID UNO
SDA PIN 10
SCK PIN 13
MOSI PIN 12
MISO PIN 11
IRQ
GND GND
RST PIN 9
3.3V 3.3V
Table 2: RFID and UNO connections

I2C MODULE UNO

I2C MODULE UNO
VCC 5V
GND GND
SDA A5
SCL A4
Table 3: I2C module and UNO Connections

Fig. 3: Flow-chart of the methodology used

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Tuijin Jishu/Journal of Propulsion Technology
ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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Hardware / Software tools Used

In this chapter, the hardware & the software descriptions related to the mini-project work is presented in brief
here. Note that this is just a template & students can write on their own, the h/w & s/w used in one or two paras.

Hardware:

• MFRC522 RFID MODULE

• AURDINO UNO WITH CABLE
• GSM MODULE 800L WITH ANTENNAS
• RFID TAGS
• 16x2 LCD DISPLAY WITH I2C MODULE
• 3.7v, 2amp BATTERY WITH HOLDER.
• BUZZER

Software:

• AURDINO IDE

Fig. 4: Mfrcc-522

Fig. 5: Audrino Uno

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Tuijin Jishu/Journal of Propulsion Technology
ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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Fig. 6: RFID tag

Fig. 7 : 16X2 LCD display with i2c module

Fig. 8 : Buzzer

Working

• Firstly, RFID module, LCD Display (with I2C module), buzzer, and GSMsim800L were connected to
Arduino using jumper wires.
• The RX of Arduino is connected to TX of GSM module and TX of Arduino is connected RX of GSM
module.
• GSM module is connected to 3.7v, 2Amp battery so that the module works well.
• If the LED of GSM module blinks every second then it is trying to register the network, once the network is
registered it blinks after every 3 seconds.
• Once the network is registered the code is dumped into Arduino.
• Downloading of necessary libraries such as mfrcc522, software serial and gsmsim800l.
• Before dumping the code into Arduino, UID’s of different RFID tags is identified using RFID reader and
Arduino uno.
• Code consisting of student’s data is dumped into the Arduino board.

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ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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• For GSM module, AT COMMANDS are used to communicate with Arduino UNO.
• Finally using different RFID tags the students data is checked and messages are sent to their respective
parents.

Fig. 9: RFID scanned for registered user

Fig 10: RFID scanned for unregistered user

Fig 11: RFID attendance system

Results and Discussions

• As students walk into their classrooms, they carry RFID-enabled ID cards containing embedded RFID tags
unique to each student.
• These tags serve as digital signatures, eliminating the need for traditional manual roll calls.
• As the students enter the classroom, RFID readers discreetly placed at the entrance scan their ID cards.

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ISSN: 1001-4055
Vol. 44 No. 3 (2023)
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• The readers quickly capture the students' RFID tag data, which is then transmitted to a central database.
This database is equipped with intelligent software that processes and logs attendance information in real-
time and send SMS to respective parents.

Fig. 12: Unregistered user

Fig. 12: Registered user

Applications, Advantages, Outcome and Limitations

Applications

• RFID attendance systems can be integrated with access control systems to manage entry and exit points in
secure facilities. Only individuals with authorized RFID badges can access certain areas.
• Schools, colleges, and universities can use RFID attendance systems to automate attendance tracking for
students and faculty members.

Advantages

• RFID systems provide accurate data capture, reducing the likelihood of mistakes in attendance records.
• Reduced paperwork, efficient attendance management, and accurate payroll calculations contribute to cost
reduction.

Outcome

• A cost-effective attendance tracking system with RFID technology using a low-cost GSM module.
• Messages are sent to the respective student’s parents regarding their presence in college/school.
• This project module could be used in other spheres such as business meetings, healthcare institutions, gym
or fitness center etc.

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Limitations

• The one limitation of this project is that usage of this product should be in high network coverage area so that
messages are sent instantly.
• Certainly, no other drawbacks are seen with the product.

Conclusions

In the rapidly advancing world of technology, traditional attendance tracking methods are being replaced by more
efficient and accurate solutions. The RFID-based attendance system is a modern approach that utilizes Radio
Frequency Identification technology to streamline attendance management across various sectors. This project
aims to develop and implement an RFID-based attendance system that offers numerous benefits over conventional
manual methods.

The RFID-based attendance system project represents a pivotal step toward modernizing attendance management.
It harnesses the power of RFID technology to replace outdated methods with a highly efficient, accurate, and
customizable solution. This system caters to diverse sectors, including education, corporate, events, and more,
elevating the way attendance is tracked and managed.

By eliminating the limitations of manual tracking, the RFID-based attendance system empowers organizations to
focus on more strategic tasks, optimize resource allocation, and enhance security measures. The project
underscores the continuous drive toward innovation and improvement in various industries, ultimately
contributing to streamlined operations and improved user experiences.

In the rapidly advancing world of technology, traditional attendance tracking methods are being replaced by more
efficient and accurate solutions. The RFID-based attendance system is a modern approach that utilizes Radio
Frequency Identification technology to streamline attendance management across various sectors. This project
aims to develop and implement an RFID-based attendance system that offers numerous benefits over conventional
manual methods.

References

[1]. Ajay Joshi, Aman Ahmad, Arpit Saxena and Poonam Juneja, “RFID Based Attendance System”,
International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology, Vol. 07, Issue 01, January 2021, pp.-
40-43
[2]. Soumil Nitin Shah and Abdelshakour Abuuzneid, “IoT Based Smart Attendance system using RFID”,
published in 2019 IEEE long island systems, applications and technology conference Farmingdale, NY,
USA, ISBN / ISSN No. 978-1-7281-2100-0/2642-8873, DOI:10.1109/LISAT.2019.8817339, Vol. 1, 29th
Aug. 2019.
[3]. Hasan U Zaman, Jannatul Siffat Hossain and Debo Shree Choudhury “RFID Based attendance system”,
8th international conference on computing, communication and networking technologies, Venue of the
Conf. / Delhi, India, ISBN / ISSN No.978-1-5090-3038-5, DOI No.10.1109/ICCCNT.2017.8204180, Conf.
Paper id No.17428901, 14th Dec. 2017.
[4]. https://www.electroniclinic.com/rfid-based-students-attendance-system-with-message-alert/
[5]. https://nevonprojects.com/rfid-attendance-system-with-sms-notification/
[6]. https://sppedtrackgps.in/rfid-attendance-for-school/

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