Near Field Communication Reader Research Articles

Analysis of Flexible Silver-printed NFC Tag Antenna on Miniaturization and Bending Effect

Size and flexibility are the two main elements that must be considered in designing a near-field communication (NFC) tag antenna because they will determine the performance of the whole system. The previously designed NFC tag antenna, which is made of a rigid substrate such as FR-4, limited the application of the tag to only on a flat surface. The size of the tag antenna also needs to be optimised based on the application requirements since different sizes of the antenna will contribute to different electrical properties, including inductance and resistance. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of a flexible printed tag antenna with different miniaturisation sizes and bending effects for NFC systems. The operating frequency of the proposed NFC tag antenna is 13.56 MHz, which is the same frequency as the NFC reader, allowing them to be coupled and to communicate with each other. Three sizes of silver printed tag antenna are presented, and the performance of the tag during bending is analyzed. Other tag antenna parameters and characteristics, including reflection coefficient, inductance, resistance, read range and output voltage, are also observed through simulation and accordingly measured. The results show that the Design 1 antenna has demonstrated the highest measured tag reading range of 3 cm, while the Design 2 antenna has shown good flexibility, withstanding bending at various angles and exhibiting a minimum reading range of 0.5 cm. Overall, the correlation between antenna size, flexibility and antenna performance has been determined and systematically validated.

Design of an IoT-based indoor tracking and condition monitoring system for the safe and transparent management of drums storing low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste

ABSTRACT Regulatory agencies and civil society organizations concerned with radioactive waste management are demanding maximized safety management of radioactive-waste-containing drums using advanced technology for more efficient and safe management. In the present paper, we propose a sensor system that can track and monitor drums containing low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste using advanced technology based on the Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed system consists of drum nodes, pallet nodes, and gateways. A drum node and magnetic sensor installed on a drum can be used to remotely check whether the drum lid is open or closed, and the location of the drum can be tracked using a near-field communication reader and an infrared module installed on the pallet node. Considering that radioactive waste is stored for a long time period, the proposed sensors are designed for low power consumption. Moreover, a pilot test involving 48 drums and 12 pallets was conducted to verify the system prototype. Accordingly, from the results of the pilot test, drawbacks were noted and solutions were proposed to improve the system in future work. Implications: We designed a test bed by fabricating a sensor-system prototype and used it in a simulation experiment. The results of this study will be used as basic data for establishing safety measures for radioactive waste management in the future through computer simulation of radioactive waste anomalies in a digital-twin system.

NFC Based Login for Mobile Apps and Websites

Abstract: This paper is concerned to show how a mobile phone equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) can be used to construct a Single Sign-On authentication system (Celikkan & Gelis, 2014, August). When logging in to numerous online sites, customers no longer have to juggle a plethora of usernames and passwords to keep track of. As omnipresent computing devices, smartphones are utilised for a wide range of functions, from authentication to tracking to medical care to entertainment and epayment. Among NFC's many advantages is that it uses short-range communication, which enhances security while also making it simple to use. Our Chrome browser extension allows users to easily authenticate and manage their personal information from their mobile devices. Owing to browser security restrictions, JavaScript code (used in the Google Chrome extension) cannot access computer system resources when executing in a browser. As a result, the Java applet is used to run the software on the user's computer. With the help of the extension, NFC Reader may be accessed and used, and a connection between Java and JavaScript can be established. Using NFC, the user does not have to input any account information because it is automatically uploaded to the online login page. IndexTerms: NFC, Login, Mobile apps , website, RFID , Authentication, Sign-in

E-Teach : Mobile Application Teaching Administrative System Using Near Field CommunicationN (NFC)

Teaching administration is a teacher's needs that are recorded or recorded into files stored by the school curriculum section. Teaching administration is in the form of lesson plans per semester made by the teacher to be applied based on the planned subject matter. Archiving of learning outcomes data and teaching materials is often ignored so that teachers do not provide subject matter according to the study plan and evaluation of learning outcomes is not satisfactory. In addition, the teacher administration file is a need for school accreditation which is a benchmark for the education office's assessment, which is a serious concern for schools in making reports in their work units. To reduce administrative errors, loss of data and the effectiveness of teaching services and assist teachers in managing lesson plans and evaluating learning outcomes, a tool that is able to provide solutions is needed. Near Field Communication, abbreviated as NFC, is a development tool for Bluetooth and RFID. NFC allows the phone to store important data securely and sent to other phones equipped with NFC or read by an NFC reader. In addition, this NFC allows mobile phones to be developed for the administration of school payments as well as giving class schedules to students. In this study, a teaching administration system based on Near Field Communication (NFC) has been developed using the Raspberry Pi as a microcontroller as well as a computer capable of applying web-based programs. Electronic teaching administration with NFC is expected to replace conventional teaching administration. The advantages of NFC-based E-Teach are that it takes a short time to use, does not depend on internet access and is easy in delivering teacher administration to those in need. Study plan data processing and evaluation of student learning outcomes are faster, more accurate and integrated with the management of education providers.

Check-In Location System Using NFC Technology

In COVID 19 pandemic, new norms have been introduced, including, to leave a record when checking-in to a particular place. This new norm is regulated in order to trace locations that have been visited by someone with positive COVID-19. This paper presents a work on development of check-in location system. The system implemented Near Field Communication (NFC) technology which is mainly utilized two NFC compatible devices where an identification card (IC) is used as a smart object (NFC tag) and the NFC detector as an NFC reader to exchange information. Testing has been conducted in order to observe the system performance, and, the results showed that this system is able to collect information of users who were coming to premise. Also, the information can be checked by authority in order to track someone with positive COVID-19. As conclusion, this system can be an alternative to MySejahtera App.

Pandemic tele-smart: a contactless tele-health system for efficient monitoring of remotely located COVID-19 quarantine wards in India using near-field communication and natural language processing system.

Efficient remote monitoring of the patient infected with coronavirus without spread to healthcare workers is the need of the hour. An effectual and faster communication system must be established wherein the healthcare workers at the remote quarantine ward can communicate with healthcare professionals present in specialty hospitals. Incidentally, there is a need to establish a contactless smart cloud-based connection between a specialty hospital and quarantine wards during pandemic situation. This paper proposes an initial contactless web-based tele-health clinical decision support system that integrates near-field communication (NFC) tags and a smart cloud-based structuring tool that enables the quick diagnosis of patients with COVID-19 symptoms and monitors the remotely located quarantine wards during the recent pandemic. The proposed framework consists of three-stages: (i) contactless health parameter extraction from the patient using an NFC tag; (ii) converting medical report into digital text using optical character recognition algorithm and extracting values of relevant medical-parameters using natural language processing; and (iii) smart visualization of key medical parameters. The accuracy of the proposed system from NFC reader until analysis using a novel structuring algorithm deployed in the cloud is more than 94%. Several capabilities of the proposed web-based system were compared with similar systems and tested in an authentic mock clinical setup, and the physicians found that the system is reliable and user friendly.Graphical abstract Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11517-021-02456-1.

Sustainable roll-to-roll manufactured multi-layer smart label

Sustainability in electronics has a growing importance due to, e.g. increasing electronic waste, and global and European sustainability goals. Printing technologies and use of paper as a substrate enable manufacturing of sustainable electronic devices for emerging applications, such as the multi-layer anti-counterfeit label presented in this paper. This device consisted of electrochromic display (ECD) element, NFC (near field communication) tag and circuitry, all fully roll-to-roll (R2R) printed and assembled on plastic-free paper substrate, thus leading to a sustainable and recyclable device. Our setup uses harvested energy from HF field of a smartphone or reader, to switch an electrochromic display after rectification to prove authenticity of a product. Our novelty is in upscaling the manufacturing process to be fully printable and R2R processable in high-throughput conditions simulating industrial environment, i.e. in pilot scale. The printing workflow consisted of 11 R2R printed layers, all done in sufficient quality and registration. The printed antennas showed sheet resistance values of 32.9±1.9 mΩ/sq. The final yield was almost 1500 fully printed devices, and in R2R assembly over 1400 labels were integrated with 96.5% yield. All the assembled tags were readable with mobile phone NFC reader. The optical contrast (ΔE*) measured for the ECDs was over 15 for all the printed displays, a progressive switching time with a colour change visible in less than 5 s. The smart tag is ITO-free, plastic-free, fully printed in R2R and has a good stability over 50 cycles and reversible colour change from light to dark blue.

Development of English Learning System by Using NFC Tag

We innovate an educational toy to play the English learning system. The proposed system uses a Raspberry Pi and two Near Field Communication (NFC) readers. The user can learn English words in three steps by using our system. First, NFC tags are presented corresponding to English words and illustrations, such as a cat, dog and chicken etc. Next, a pair of tags is required to select corresponding to an English word and illustration. Finally, by holding the pair over the NFC reader, the answer is displayed on a touch panel to inform whether it is correct or incorrect. Our system has two aspects. The one is an educational system for children and the other is an educational toy playing with children. As to the former, the system helps the children as users can learn English words by intuitive operation such as operating the touch panel and holding the NFC tags. As to the latter, it offers a learning experience with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In this paper, we report findings through the construction of the English learning system.

Deep-Learning-Aided RF Fingerprinting for NFC Security

Given the ever increasing use of near field communication (NFC), the security of this system is becoming increasingly important. Recently, radio frequency (RF) fingerprinting, where the physical RF characteristics of a communication device are used as a means to provide guarantees of authenticity and security, has received serious consideration due to the uniqueness of these characteristics, making cloning difficult. In this article, we discuss the feasibility of RF fingerprinting assisted by deep learning for use in identifying NFC tags. To this end, we implement a hardware testbed with an off-the-shelf NFC reader and software defined radio. An RF signal corresponding to one-bit transmission from the NFC tag is used to extract the RF characteristics, which enables rapid identification. Three different types of deep neural network are used, namely fully connected layer-based neural network” convolutional neural network, and recurrent neural network. By exper-iment, we confirm that deep-learning-based algorithms can uniquely distinguish 50 NFC tags with up to 96.16 percent accuracy. We also discuss some of the key technical challenges involved in the use of deep-learning-based RF fingerprinting for NFC.

Battery-Less NFC Bicycle Tire Pressure Sensor Based on a Force-Sensing Resistor

This paper describes a novel low-cost tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) for bicycles. The system is based on a battery-less near field communication (NFC) tag that integrates a pressure sensor, which is placed between the tire and the inner tube. The system uses no battery since the energy is obtained from the magnetic field induced by the reader in order to establish the communication. The pressure can be read by any NFC-enabled reader such as a smartphone. The pressure sensor is a force-sensing resistor (FSR) that controls the oscillation frequency of a 555 timer-based oscillator. The frequency is read and computed by a microcontroller, and the result is written via I <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> C bus to the memory of a near-field communication integrated circuit (IC), which is read by a commercial smartphone or NFC reader. A prototype is designed on an FR4 substrate which integrates a 12 ×16 mm antenna connected to the NFC IC (NT3H211 from NXP). The proposed prototype has a 3D-printed enclosure to protect the components mounted on the surface of the PCB and to protect the tire from punctures. A system for characterizing the read range is presented. The tag requires a minimum magnetic field of 2.9 A <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">RMS</sub> /m to operate up to a distance of 8 mm between reader and the tire, providing enough power to supply energy to the whole circuitry and to receive the information stored at the NFC IC. The system has been tested with a 59 mm-width mountain bike tire. The sensor has been characterized using a simple polynomial fitting to obtain the pressure from the measurement of the oscillation frequency. An accuracy of 0.1 has been accomplished in the range of 0.5 to 2.2 bar. To test the system, several inflation cycles have been performed and showed that the system presents good repeatability.

Exploring Half-Duplex Communication of NFC Read/Write Mode for Secure Multi-Factor Authentication

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a prominent short-range, contact-less communication technology, which is rapidly getting popular in modern smart devices. For communication between two active devices via NFC, applications generally choose the peer-to-peer operation mode. In this paper, we exploit the possibility of using the NFC read/write mode, designed primarily for unidirectional data transfer from an active NFC reader to a passive NFC tag, for bi-directional half-duplex communication between two active NFC devices. The advantages of using the NFC read/write mode include low protocol overhead and permitting different data formats. However, the challenges are avoiding the reader collision problem, maintaining a secure session, and completing all transactions in an acceptable time frame. In this paper, we address the above challenges and propose a methodology for efficient communication between active NFC devices using NFC read/write mode. To evaluate the scheme, we design a secure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) system that requires bi-directional communication for mutually authenticating two NFC devices. The proposed methodology is experimentally verified using NFC-enabled Android smartphones and a Kerberos server as the third-party authenticator.

ADOPTION OF AN INTEGRATED NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING SYSTEM TOWARD IMPROVEMENT OF TELEHEALTH SOLUTIONS

Telehealth is the usage of digital medical data and telecommunication technologies to aid long-distance clinical healthcare. Proper maintenance of a patient’s medical record has been a hindrance toward the growth of Telehealth services. The patient’s data, particularly emergency data, must be available to medical personnel within a short time frame and independent of potential interruption of network connections. In this paper, we propose a Near Field Communication (NFC) wristband that provides access to the medical details, history and contact details of a patient. By this, the doctor or the paramedical officer can provide the patient with the best treatment within a short period of time. This system comes in handy even if the patient is unconscious/unable to answer. The doctor or the paramedical officer can quickly draft a patient’s report and send it to the hospital. The proposed framework consists of the following four stages: (i) obtaining emergency medical data with the help of NFC chips, (ii) converting medical report into digital text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), (iii) structuring the narrative medical text into organized data using NLP and (iv) comparative analysis of the selected content. An image database with 1200 medical case histories has been utilized for the algorithm development and validation. The OCR algorithms for converting images to text produced more than 98% on average and NLP algorithm produced around 94.1% accuracy. Overall, the performance of the system from NFC reader till analysis of the specific field is more than 95%. The developed OCR and NLP integrated software helps the doctor or the health officer to immediately convert it into text format and the unstructured text is quickly organized into the respective fields.

Offloading Computations to Mobile Devices and Cloudlets via an Upgraded NFC Communication Protocol

The increasing complexity of smartphone applications and services necessitate high battery consumption, but the growth of smartphones’ battery capacity is not keeping pace with these increasing power demands. To overcome this problem, researchers gave birth to the Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) research area. In this paper, we advance on previous ideas, proposing and implementing a Near Field Communication (NFC)-based computation offloading framework. This research is motivated by the advantages of NFC's short distance communication, its better security, and its low battery consumption characteristics. We design a new NFC communication protocol that overcomes the limitations of the default NFC protocol; removing the need for constant user interaction, the one–way communication restraint, and the limit on low data size transfer. Via the implemented framework, parts of mobile applications can be offloaded to other mobile devices or cloudlets equipped with an NFC reader. We present experimental results of the energy consumption and the time duration of computationally and data intensive representative applications: (i) RSA key generation and encryption, (ii) gaming/puzzles, (iii) face detection, (iv) media download from the Internet, and (v) data transferring between the mobile and the cloudlet. We show that when the helper device is more powerful than the device offloading the computations, the execution time of the tasks is reduced. Finally, we show that devices that offload application parts considerably reduce their energy consumption due to the low–power NFC interface and the benefits of offloading.

Smart Textile Integrated Wireless Powered Near Field Communication Body Temperature and Sweat Sensing System

Near field communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless communication technique that has become an attractive device for healthcare and wellbeing monitoring. The work reported here demonstrates the development of a battery free wearable sensing system with temperature and sweat sensors embedded into and powered by a smart textile NFC antenna. The NFC antenna is seamlessly integrated with closed-body garments, and the sensor data can be easily acquired by NFC readers and smart phones in order to achieve real time and wireless monitor of health status in a convenient and nonintrusive way. A Dickson charge pump circuit has been designed and implemented in order to pump up the voltage and ensure a steady voltage supply for the sweat sensor. The maximum read range for accessing sensor data is 6 cm. The on-body measurement accuracy of the temperature sensor and sweat sensor are able to achieve ±0.14 °C and ±0.2%, respectively. The presented system can provide wearable battery-free ubiquitous wireless connectivity for point-of-care and any time healthcare and wellbeing monitoring.

NFC Based Electronic Medical Record

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology enables mobile phones to store important data safely and reliably. The data can be sent to another phone equipped with NFC or read by NFC reader. Through special applications the data can also be added, subtracted, or modified. This NFC capability allows the phone to be developed into a device that can store important data such as e-money or electronic medical records. In this research has been developed medical record system based on Near Field Communication (NFC). The results of alpha and beta testing show that the developed application has good performance.

Prototype of NFC Reader as a Attendance Sign at The Presence System

Presence processes to mark the attendance of an individual in an activity can be manipulated in various ways. Many of researches have been done to overcome the problem including the use of Student Identity Card (KTM), barcode, fingerprint, Near Field Communication (NFC) and biometric. Implementation of those technologies requires customization of a running system or creating a new system. This research will make NFC Reader connected to a computer via USB without having to change the running system. The research method uses prototyping to produce a system that suits the needs and desires of the user. This research produced some prototype results from previous repair process. The microcontroller needed is one that supports USB-Hosts such as Arduino Duemilanove, Leonardo or Micro. Tools can work as expected after using an alternative library. The test results show the NFC Reader prototype can read NFC tag in less than 1 second with various types of laptops. The hardware specification and type of laptop operating system has no significant effect on the performance of NFC Reader with an average start up time of about 17 seconds before it is ready to use.

Enhanced Physical Document Management using NFC with Verification for Security and Privacy

This study focuses on implementation of physical document management for an organization using Near-Field Communication (NFC) since it provides faster detection on tracking items based on location. Current physical document management operates using bar-codes. However, barcodes are able to be duplicated, which make it not secure that lead to forgery and unauthorized modification. Therefore, the purpose of the proposed physical document management system is to produce a better administration control in an organization through the use of verification mechanism. Nonetheless, the current NFC based system is lack of verification process. Thus, an enhancement in physical document management with verification process is proposed and self-developed system is built using C#, SQLite, Visual Studio, NFC tag and NFC reader (ACR122U-A9). Moreover, the new system required employee to log in to the system by scanning ID tag and followed by the physical document File tag, which both tags scanned at the NFC reader. Then, information of the physical file coordinator and the status of the location of the physical document file is displayed. The significant of this study is to protect confidential document and improve administrative control through dual verification; and produce a database to monitor the real-time data detection.

IoT-Linked Integrated NFC and Dual Band UHF/2.45 GHz RFID Reader Antenna Scheme

This research proposes a system board of integrated antenna scheme of near-field communication (NFC) and dual band ultra-high frequency (UHF, 920–925 MHz)/2.45 GHz radio frequency identification (RFID) reader antennas for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The integrated antenna scheme is capable of simultaneous execution of NFC and UHF RFID functions whereby the NFC and UHF RFID modules, which are serially connected to a microcontroller with Wi-Fi module (NodeMCU), read the universal identification (UID) of NFC and UHF RFID tags. The data are then forwarded to a cloud server via Internet of Things (IoT) and are viewable on smartphones using Blynk mobile application via IoT. To realize the optimal antenna design, simulations were carried out using CST Studio Suite. Prototype antennas were subsequently fabricated and integrated into the system board for IoT-linked near- and far-field communication. The simulation and measured results are in good agreement. The NFC reader antenna resonates at 13.56 MHz, and the dual band UHF/2.45 GHz RFID reader antenna achieves the 920–925 MHz and microwave (MW) bands with high isolation. The novelty of the proposed integrated NFC and UHF RFID antenna scheme lies in the use of cloud technology to store real-time and archival data, in place of traditional servers. The integrated antenna scheme could achieve the NFC, UHF, and MW frequency bands, rendering it ideal for IoT applications.

A Survey of NFC Sensors Based on Energy Harvesting for IoT Applications

In this article, an overview of recent advances in the field of battery-less near-field communication (NFC) sensors is provided, along with a brief comparison of other short-range radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies. After reviewing power transfer using NFC, recommendations are made for the practical design of NFC-based tags and NFC readers. A list of commercial NFC integrated circuits with energy-harvesting capabilities is also provided. Finally, a survey of the state of the art in NFC-based sensors is presented, which demonstrates that a wide range of sensors (both chemical and physical) can be used with this technology. Particular interest arose in wearable sensors and cold-chain traceability applications. The availability of low-cost devices and the incorporation of NFC readers into most current mobile phones make NFC technology key to the development of green Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Low-cost wireless power efficiency optimization of the NFC tag through switchable receiver antenna

Near-field communication (NFC) readers, ubiquitously embedded in smartphones and other infrastructures can wirelessly deliver mW-level power to NFC tags. Our previous work NFC-wireless identification and sensing platform (WISP) proves that the generated NFC signal from an NFC enabled phone can power a tag (NFC-WISP) with display and sensing capabilities in addition to identification. However, accurately aligning and placing the NFC tag's antenna to ensure the high power delivery efficiency and communication performance is very challenging for the users. In addition, the performance of the NFC tag is not only range and alignment sensitive but also is a function of its run-time load impedance. This makes the execution of power-hungry tasks on an NFC tag (like the NFC-WISP) very challenging. Therefore, we explore a low-cost tag antenna design to achieve higher power delivered to the load (PDL) by utilizing two different antenna configurations (2-coil/3-coil). The two types of antenna configurations can be used to dynamically adapt to the requirements of varied range, alignment and load impedance in real-time, therefore, we achieve continuous high PDL and reliable communication. With the proposed method, we can, for example, turn a semi-passive NFC-WISP into a passive display tag in which an embedded 2.7″ E-ink screen can be updated robustly by a tapped NFC reader (e.g. an NFC-enable cell-phone) over a 3 seconds and within 1.5cm range.