A Complete Farm Management System based on Animal Identification using RFID Technology

Journey Title: A Complete Farm Management System based on Animal Identification using RFID Technology   


Authors: Athanasios S. Voulodimos, Charalampos Z.Patrikakis,

Alexander B.Sideridis, Vasileios A. Ntafis, Efthycia M. Xylouri.

Prepared by: Roisah Fadhilah bt Saifullah, 13363

      In this thesis, the team describes about the development and the outcome of the research on farm management system. This project act as a platform on monitoring animal based on the use of RFID technology. With the operation of mobile computing and RFID technology together with wireless and mobile networking, the project come out with the name of FARMA. This platform gives such a major platform for agricultural and stockbreeding area. Among the advantages are, tracking and reporting the animal diseases, performing a systematic identification of animals on which are vaccinated or tested, as well as allocating the genetic background of animals for subsidizing purpose. Throughout this thesis, it explained more on FARMA platform, architecture of the platform and the result of the evaluation.

Type of RFID Tags

      There are 2 groups of RFID tags which are LF (low frequency) tags function (125-134.2 kHz), and HF (high frequency) tags function (13.56 MHz) based on the carrier frequency band. Basically, LF is the most tag that had been used. Before this, branding, ear notches, paint marks, tattoos and ear tags are the traditional methods for the animal tracking and identification.  With the invention of RFID tag, gives reliable and efficient method for that purpose. Boluses, ear tags and injectable glass tags are the main types of RFID tags for animal identification. 

The FARMA Platform

      The main focus of the platform is being able to manage a lot of data and information of animals at a time. Firstly, it can store animal identification parameters, health parameters, productive and reproductive data as well as controlling their movement parameters. Besides that, important data on ethologic and nutrition can be traced. At the end, all the information and data will be write and stored on the RFID tag. 

Figure 1

      Figure 1 shows the FARMA architectures (design and implementation). There are 3 scopes under the platform which are information storage and management on different types of animals, with the different types of RFID tags and different kinds of workstations via various kinds of connectivity.

Figure 2

      In the figure 2, 3 main subsystems had been identified. The subsystems are the central database, local database and mobile-RFID subsystem. General information on existing farm and farm visit schedule by veterinary are included in the central database. While, for local database is more on animal data management application. Mobile computing-RFID subsystem is consists of 4 interfaces which are user interface, RFID management, database interface and network communication management. This subsystem will links the mobile device and portable RFID reader/writer to read the content of RFID tags placed on the animals.

 A Practical Implementation

      This thesis also provides the details on practical implementation of the system. 3 tier architecture models have been introduced to support scalability, re-usability, access and data security and manageability. The models are presentation tier, logic tier, and data tier.  ASP (Active Server Pages) model is always been used in presentation tier. While, Microsoft.NET  framework support the ASP pages. It is mostly used in the development of web application. In data tier itself mostly used Microsoft SQL Server which then act as database server. In addition, only registered and authorized users are permitted to access the central database. For local database, the basic criteria must be users’ friendly and rich user interface. Meanwhile, in mobile-RFID subsystem, Microsoft.NET Framework is used for the application and the ADO.NET set for communication with local database. Furthermore, for RFID reader/writer devices, 3 main alternatives were provided. They are CF (compact flash) card, SD (secure digital) card and embedded in a mobile device.

Evaluation and Future Work

The proposed FARMA platform is evaluated and the result shows that this platform is still not full fill the demand of the market. Even there are different types of tags, each tags can only be used at certain types of animals. A possible explanation on this may due to the low consumption of reader/writer device. Besides, there is problem in using communication technologies as the network coverage in rural area is limited. In conclusion, this proposed system has great features for effective and efficient farm management. For future enhancement, the research group that has implemented the system still keep on investigates these conditions. 

References

1) Caja, G., Collin, C., Nehring, R., Ribo, O., 1999. Development of a ceramic bolus for     the permanent electronic identification of  sheep,  goat and cattle. Computers  and Electronics in Agriculture 24 (1),  45–63.

2) Eradus, W.J.,  Jansen, M.B., 1999. Animal identification and monitoring.  Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 24, 91–98.

3) RFID.     Technology   news   and  insights  (n.d.).   Retrieved June 30,  2008, from http://www.aimglobal.org/technologies/rfid/

RFID At The Gates: RFID technology helps gated communities control access

Title of journal: RFID: A Key to Automating Everything.

Author: Roy Want

Summary prepared by: Nabil Assila Binti Amran

10 August, 2011

Residential gated communities are growing in popularity and the most overwhelming reason people are purchasing homes in gated communities is the sense of security – limited volume of traffic in a neighborhood and controlled access to the streets. But managing access to these communities presents many challenges. Entry to a gated community is typically a manual process – burdensome and subject to errors i.e. forgotten passwords and lost “clickers” to the outright transfer of access credentials. Manual processes using papers and logbook is so much disorganized.

Taking this problem into an opportunity, Radiant RFID and GateSource Corporation together have developed a modern, passive solution for the gated communities. Radiant RFID’s system communicates via GateSource’s Web services to validate tags and assign further instructions to readers and gates. The RFID system uses an interrogator antenna at the gate to read the vehicle-mounted RFID tag and match the tag number against a database of permissible entrants to the neighborhood. Valid tag numbers will then lift the gate automatically.

Kenneth Ratton, VP of Sales & Marketing with Radiant RFID said:

“We’ve never had any downtime with this system, and it requires zero maintenance.”

 

The RFID-controlled community access solution has bring about many of the expected benefits. First and foremost, the system delivers precise tracking and control of community access. Each tag issued is unique to a vehicle, and the data captured at the gate creates a detailed access log, updated on the web-based application every 10 minutes, enabling nearly real time information. Bonnie Carlisle, president of Southwest Management Services – a community association management company serving large, gated communities in Texas, stated that the RFID technology provides a promising security as there is no ambiguity about who is accessing those communities.

Secondly, the online administration saves time for managers and residents. Even issuing and activating tags is done through the GateSource online software.

Lastly, Carlisle stated that the residents of these gated communities take satisfaction in knowing access is controlled with a system that is easy to use.

On top of these benefits, the work of GateSource, Radiant RFID and Metalcraft has produced a

solution that as Ratton said:

“...something that cost less and is much easier to use.”

He added, the more important thing is Radiant RFID and Metacraft has helped gated communities realize their promise to limit the volume of traffic in a neighborhood and controlling who has access to the streets.

    Details:

·         Material: .002” thick white polypropylene

·         Affixing Methods: .0035” thick low surface energy, pressure-sensitive adhesive.

·         Environment: Mild and moderate. Resists moderate solvents and caustics/acids.

·         Numbering Options: Copy only, serialized/unserialized numbers and bar code with human readable numbers

·         Production Time: 15 work days

·         Standard Sizes: 4" x 1", 4 3/8" x 1 1/8"

·         RFID Specs: Passive UHF

_________________________________________________________________________

    
          References:

1. www.barcode-rfid-labels.com/rfid_windshield.htm 
2. www.rfid-in-china.com/products_703_1.html  
3. www.idplate.com/rfid-tags-and-rfid-labels/.../rfid-windshield-tag
4. Journal : RFID: A Key to Automating Everything by W.Roy

LANDMARC : Indoor Location Sensing Using Active RFID

Journal Title   : LANDMARC : Indoor Location Sensing Using Active RFID

Authors           : Lionel M. Ni, Yunhao Liu, Yiu Cho Lau & Abhishek P.Patil.

Prepared by    : Farhana Musa

A research team was formed by Lionel M.Ni, Yunhao Liu, Yiu Cho Lau and Abhishek P.Patil, as the main objective of the research is to develop an indoor location-sensing system for various mobile commerce applications. The goal is to implement a prototype indoor location-sensing system using easily accessible wireless devices, which are off-the-shelf products.

To implement the prototype framework, the Spider System manufactured by RF  Code ²  was chosen, after looking into the specifications of different available systems. Their active tags have a read range of 150 feet, and this range can be increased to 1000 feet with the addition of a special antenna, should the need arise. Figure 1 shows the RFID readers and tags used in the prototype system, and their relative size compared with a US quarter.

Figure 1. The RFID reader and tag used in the prototype system

System Setup

                The prototype environment consists of a sensing network that assists in the location tracking of mobile users or objects within certain accuracy, and a wireless network that enables the communication between mobile devices and the Internet. The sensing network primarily includes the RF readers and RF tags as mentioned earlier. The other major part of the infrastructure is the wireless network that allows wireless communication between mobile devices like PDAs and the Internet. In addition, it also acts as a bridge between the sensing network and the other part of the system.

To be able to track an object’s location, the location information received from the RF readers has to be processed before being useful.  After the signal is received by the RF readers, the readers then report the information to “TagTracker Concentrator LI” (a software program/API provided by RF Code, Inc.) via a wired or wireless network.  After the information from the readers is processed by the TagTracker Concentrator LI, the processed location information can be buffered locally as a file on the same machine or transmitted via a network socket (configurable in the API).

In addition, the LANDMARC approach increases accuracy without placing more readers by employing the idea of having extra fixed location reference tags to assist in location calibration. These reference tags serve as reference points in the system. This approach has a major advantage, among others, of saving cost. This is because there is no need for a large number of expensive RFID readers, as extra, cheaper RFID tags are used instead.

Experimental results and performance evaluation

                A series of experiments was conducted to evaluate the  performance of the positioning of the LANDMARC System. In the standard setup, 4 RF readers (n=4) was placed in the lab and 16 tags (m=16) as reference tags while the other 8 tags (u=8) as objects being tracked, as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2. Placement of RF readers and tags (standard placement).

                Using this setup, the data are collected via the socket from the TagTracker Concentrator LI in groups of a one-hour period and the system will compute the coordinates of the tracking tags based on each group of data.

To quantify how well the LANDMARC system performs, the error distance is used as the basis for the accuracy of the system. The location estimation error, e, is defined  to be the linear distance between the tracking tag’s real coordinates (x₀, y₀) and the computed coordinates (x, y), given by e =  

        I.            Influence of the environmental factors

In order to see how well the LANDMARC approach works in different environments, 10 groups of data were collected from midnight to early morning (during which time there is little movement) and another 10 groups of data from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM (at which time varying level of activities that would result in variations in transmission of the tags). Figure 3  illustrates the comparison.

Figure 3. Cumulative percentile of error distance in the daytime and at night

From the results, there is not much difference in the overall accuracy. This shows that the reference tag approach can successfully  offset the dynamics of interference.

      II.            Effect of the number of readers

One of the problems of using RF to locate objects is the inconsistency of the signal strength reception. This can primarily be due to the environment and the device itself. In most cases,

the environmental factors always have the most impact on the accuracy and maximum detectable range. These include issues like furniture placement, people’s movement, and so on. To better deal with the problem, more RF readers can be added to the system to improve the accuracy. With more RF readers, a better decision can be made for location sensing because more data can be gathered by having extra readers to do the sensing as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Cumulative percentile of error distance for 3 and 4 RF readers.

Conclusions

The proposed LANDMARC approach does show that active RFID is a viable cost-effective candidate for accurate indoor location sensing. However, there are three problems that RFID vendors have to overcome in order to compete in a new and growing market.

The first problem is that none of the currently available RFID products provides the signal strength of tags directly. This feature can easily be added as readers do have the signal strength information from tags. Next, the second problem is the long latency between a tracking tag being physically placed to its location being computed by the location server. This can be remedied by the RFID vendors, as they should provide a mechanism to allow users to reconfigure the time interval. Finally, the third problem is the variation in the tags’ signal strength in emitting the RF signal. A possible explanation for this may be due to the variation of the chips and circuits, as well as batteries.  If all the above problems can be overcome, the accuracy and latency of LANDMARC System will be greatly improved. 

References

[1]  Ni, L. M., Liu, Y., Lau, Y. C., & Patil, A. (2004). LANDMARC : Indoor Location  

       Sensing Using Active RFID. Wireless Networks, 10 (6), 701-710.        

       http://www.springerlink.com/content/x863142l65727r18/

[2] RF Code, Inc., http://rfcode.com/ProductsFrame.asp

A 2G-RFID-BASED E-HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Title of journal : A 2G-RFID-BASED E-HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

Authors : MIN CHEN, SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

SERGIO GONZALEZ AND VICTOR LEUNG, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
QIAN ZHANG, HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
MING LI, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO


Reported by : YUSAIRAH BINTI HAMZAH 13433

  A report and proposal by Min Chen from Seoul National University, he propose an evolution from first-generation RFID systems 1G-RFID-Sys to second-generation RFID systems (2G-RFID-Sys), which main distinctive feature is the introduction of dynamic rule encoding stored in RFID tags, instead of placing them in databases as is currently done in 1G-RFID-Sys.

   According to Min Chen, he said that we have seen a great increase in the demand for e-healthcare management system in recent years. Overloaded healthcare system contributes to an ongoing decline in the quality of services. With RFID technology, it is now possible to design new systems that help collect and monitor patients’ health conditions. To address this issue, he proposed an evolution from 1G-RFID-Sys to second-generation RFID systems1 (2G-RFID-Sys).

Compared to 1G-RFID-Sys, tags in 2G-RFIDSys would store not only passive but also active information encoded in the form of mobile codes that reflecting the up-to-date service requirements:

if {condition (environmental parameters)}

then {<action1 (parameter1)>, <action2

(parameter2)>…},

Compared to 1G-RFID-Sys, 2G-RFID-Sys has the following features:

i) Freedom for backend systems. Relieving the processing, communication, and storage load.

ii) Flexibility and intelligence. Accommodate various functions with specific requirements

iii) Transferring the action specification from the backend system to the object itself, information on the object’s requirements is always available.

iii) During dynamic environment, the tag’s mobile code is updated according to the user’s requirement, and not by means of the backend system. Much more scalable system that can accommodate a significantly larger number of applications without having to perform many changes to the existing infrastructure.

  The figure shows the functional components of the proposed 2G-RFID-Sys, including a predefined tag message format, a code information manager, an identification filter, a code interpreter, an environmental parameters manager, a processing module, and an action manager, as detailed next.

1) Tag Message Format

With the latest developments in RFID technology, tags can be rewritten millions of times. The amount of memory they possess is much larger than before. As shown in the figure, the message format contains four fields: identification, description, mobile codes’ space, and action priority. The identification and description information is passive, and unchanging. The mobile codes and action priority can be updated dynamically according to application requirements. 

2) Code Information Manager

When the tag’s content is received by the RFID reader, the data is first fragmented into its passive information and codes information fields. The codes information will be forwarded to the code information manager. However, if an ID-filter is employed by the reader, the codes are held until the object’s identity clears, and they are subsequently forwarded to the codes interpreter. Otherwise, the codes are discarded by the code information manager.

3) Codes Interpreter

The codes interpreter comprises an incoming codes queue and a codes parser. The codes with higher action priority will be forwarded to the codes parser first.

4) ID-Filter

ID information is first checked by the ID-filter, which has two main functionalities:

a) It decreases unnecessary system load by discarding the tag information read by the RFID reader when unknown/unassociated objects appear in its proximity

b) Enhanced security by maintaining IDs that represents either the approved or unapproved tags.

5) EPC Network

The Electronic Product Code (EPC), designed by the EPC Global Network. It enabling automatic and instant identification of items in the supply chain and sharing the information throughout the supply chain. The EPC is a unique identifier of a physical object stored in an RFID tag.

6) Environmental Parameters Manager

Retrieve the environmental parameters that facilitate the processing module’s decision making task. For example, in order to get the environmental temperature and humidity, a notification is sent to the sensor nodes in the region to sense the environment in advance. 

7) Action Manager

It carries out the desired tasks in accordance with the decision made. If an action/service is requested, the action manager executes the necessary processes to perform such an action. The output of an action can vary according to the different types of systems.

   One example of the application is 2G-RFID-Sys-based E-healthcare system. In this system the medical conditions of a patient can be monitored as determined by the corresponding healthcare system, and subsequently updated in the database by means of a cell phone, a Wi-Fi connection, depending on the patient’s location. Advanced 2G RFID components being used are:

1) RFID Tag

Design the mobile codes for the doctor and the users. For instance, the doctor’s mobile codes would encompass the required directives related to up-to-date diagnosis and necessary medical treatment. Similarly, the patient’s mobile codes can specify the level of service expected (low, medium, or high priority), access permissions, and so on. This makes it easier for the local RFID readers to determine whether a patient is receiving the service he/she needs, whether the patient is in the correct location within the medical facility, and so on, without having to rely on the central database.

2) WBAN

Tiny sensors attached to patient’s body (arms, legs, etc.) to form a WBAN.  They convey the physiological signals (e.g., body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate) conveys useful health condition information on a person who needs to be remotely monitored on a constant basis by a qualified healthcare practitioner.

3) Cell Phone and Communications Gateway

The link of the personal communications devices, patient’s monitoring subsystem with different components of the E-healthcare system through one or more communication interfaces. For example, a Zigbee-enabled WBAN can readily send the patient’s physiological signals to a cell phone, which can in turn forward this along with GPS information to locate the patient in an emergency situation as needed. 

   The proposed 2G-RFIDSys can provide including improvements in system scalability, information availability, automated monitoring and processing of sensitive information, and access control. As being informed, these benefits can be achieved by employing RFID tags with more memory to encode information-rich data along with action scripts that can be interpreted by the corresponding subsystems to automate a number of processes.

REFERENCES

[1] http://www.rfid.org/

[2] Q. Sheng, X. Li, and S. Zeadally, “Enabling Next-Generation

RFID Applications: Solutions and Challenges,” IEEE

Computer, vol. 41, no. 9, Sept. 2008, pp. 21–28.

[3] J. Cho et al., “SARIF: A Novel Framework for Integrating

Wireless Sensor and RFID Networks,” IEEE Wireless

Commun., vol .14, no. 6, Dec. 2007, pp. 50–56.

[4] R. Huang, J. Ma, and Q. Jin, “A Tree-Structured Intelligence

Entity Pool and Its Sharing among Ubiquitous

Objects,” Proc. 7th IEEE/IFIP Int’l. Conf. Embedded

Ubiquitous Comp., Vancouver, Aug. 29–31, 2009, pp.

318–25.

[5] http://www.autoidlabs.org/

[6] Fujitsu Microelectronics Data Sheet; http://edevice.fujitsu.

com/fj/DATASHEET/e-ds/e433101.pdf

[7] http://www.epcglobalinc.org/home

[8] M. Chen, S. Gonzalez, and V. Leung, “Applications and

Design Issues of Mobile Agents in Wireless Sensor Networks,”

IEEE Wireless Commun., vol. 14, no. 6, Dec.

2007, pp. 20–26.

[9] ZigBee Spec., accessed Mar. 18, 2008; http://zigbee.org

RFID and Jigsaw Puzzle

Title of journal : The smart jigsaw puzzle assistant: Using RFID technology for building augmented real-world games

Author : Jürgen Bohn

Summary prepared by : Anis Farhana Mat Yusoh 13032

Have you ever facing problem in finishing the jigsaw puzzle game? Whether it is real or virtual game, it is sometime can make us feel annoying in order to match the puzzles. Sometimes, it takes almost hours to find one piece that is suitable in order to make up the jigsaw puzzle. For instance, imagine playing a large jigsaw puzzle with several thousand pieces, and then you get stuck, sifting for hours through the pile of remaining pieces that look all too similar, desperately trying to find a next matching piece. As of today, the ambitious player has no alternative but to back down and accept the unavoidable discomfort of manually trying out each of the remaining pieces until he or she finds the one which fits into the eyed spot of the jigsaw game.

But with the new discovery in applying the RFID in playing jigsaw puzzle can solve all the obstacles and hardships of enjoying the jigsaw puzzle game, whereas making it more fun and more enjoyable. The prototype of this game have been done by Jürgen Bohn, Distributed Systems Group from Institute for Pervasive Computing, ETH Zurich, Switzerland called “The smart jigsaw puzzle assistant ( SJPA )”.

In this technology all the jigsaw puzzle have been tagged with miniature RFID tags,

Once there are all been tags, each piece will have their own ID. To make it function, user have to move the detector  called handy RFID reader that have been connected to the computer or laptop over the remaining jigsaw pieces until it detects another piece that can be added to the already combined pieces of the puzzle. SJPA can easily and unambiguously distinguish the various pieces of the puzzle. And once the relative position of each tagged jigsaw piece is determined with respect to the overall jigsaw puzzle, the SJPA is able to decide which pieces can be attached to a given jigsaw piece or to an already combined set thereof. Alternatively, the player can choose to pick a random jigsaw piece whose position in the overall puzzle game is then visualized by the SJPA and the update also will be displayed in the screen.

Another advance technology have been built by John that is more real to the user is by use RFID tags to represent certain functions same as functions have in the SJPA application. With this advancements it provide more friendly user interface to the user as it is more comfortable and intuitive than the currently available computer-based graphical user interfaces as using this way, it helps the user to concentrate themselves to play with the tangibles parts of the in order to reach the mouse or keyboard whenever he or she wants to select a special game function of the augmented puzzle game. In this way we can significantly increase the ease of use of the augmented game and keep low the annoyance level associated with frequent change-overs between the physical real-world game and the computer. The RFID-based interface also enables the user to actively interact with all parts of the physical real-world game – both with the physical jigsaw pieces and with the printed game instructions (the latter containing RFID-tags embedded in the papers which provide direct “physical” links to the special functions of the augmented game, for instance). Such RFID-based user interfaces can play an important role in bridging the gap between physical real-world games and virtual games, providing new means of user interaction and game control. Ultimately, they contribute to realizing the vision of “clicking in the real world”.

 Fully operational augmented jigsaw puzzle game has been developed and prototypically implemented using miniature RFID tags and a palm-sized RFID scanner.  RFID tags used are Hitachi μ-chip inlets, which consist of a tiny 0.4 mm x 0.4 mm μ-chip together with an external antenna of approx. 5 cm length obtained from Hitachi Ltd., Japan, as part of joint research collaboration between Hitachi Systems Development Laboratory (SDL), Japan, and the Distributed Systems Group at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. The Hitachi μ-chip operates at a frequency of 2.45 GHz and has a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique ID.

This unique application of RFID possibly done and can be set as a trend of playing jigsaw puzzle. For details, google here;http://scholar.google.com.my/scholarhl=en&q=japan+technology+of+rfid&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 

About the author : Jürgen Bohn received a master's degree in computer science from the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany, inMarch 2000. In June 1999 he joined the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, where he worked on his master's thesis in the field of mobile agent security. Since May 2000 he is a research assistant at the Distributed Systems Group in the Institute for Pervasive Computing at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.