International Journal of Computer Applications® (IJCA) (0975 – 8887) National Conference cum Workshop on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, NCWBCB- 2014 30 RFID based Student Attendance System Elima Hussain Gauhati University Guwahati Assam, India Priyanka Dugar Gauhati University Guwahati Assam, India Vaskar Deka Gauhati University Guwahati Assam, India Abdul Hannan Gauhati University Guwahati Assam, India ABSTRACT Attendance plays a vital role in evaluating a student. The traditional method of taking attendance manually is very time consuming and often leads to human error. This paper elaborates the implementation of Radio Frequency Identification based Student Attendance Management System using Open Source Software in a multi-user environment. The system uses python as backend for reading tags. A JAVA based desktop application is used to authenticate lecturers, run the python code and record tags in an XML file. Finally, the XML file is uploaded in the server for processing and interpreting student’s attendance. User can view attendance by accessing the web portal. Keywords RFID, RFID tags, RFID reader, Lecturer, Student, Attendance. 1. INTRODUCTION RFID based Student Attendance Management system uses emerging technology that eliminates the problem faced in manual attendance entry and will prove to be more reliable and accurate. Radio Frequency Identification is a technology that uses radio waves to transfer data from an RFID tag, through a reader for the purpose of uniquely identifying a person. An RFID system consists of a tag and a reader. The RFID reader consists of an antenna and transceiver. The reader is usually on and continuously senses its range of operation. Whenever a tag enters its field of operation, the RFID reader transmits electromagnetic waves using antenna to communicate with the tag’s antenna. The tag’s antenna receives data from the reader, activates tag and reflects back the incident electromagnetic waves with RFID tag information. The transceiver in the reader receives data and passes them on to the controllers. The system uses Php, MySQL, Java, Python, XML and Apache to cater the recording, storing and extracting student’s attendance. Java is used for developing desktop application for taking attendance, python to retrieve data read by RFID reader and XML to store read tagIDs temporarily in the client PC. The XML file is then sent to the server using SSH for further processing. PHP is used for developing the web portal for accessing attendance. RFID based Student Attendance Management System was built using Open Source Software which reduces the overall cost of development process. 2. RELATED WORKS Samuel King Opoku[1] have underwent a project based on biometric system. Under this system, time and attendance software is paired with a time clock which uses biometric technology for authenticating employees. The employees can use their fingerprints for clocking in and clocking out. Similar technology was implemented by Simao, P. Fonseca, J. Santos, V[2] with the help of two technologies namely Embedded system and Biometrics. Arulogun O. T. , Olatunbosun, A. , Fakolujo O. A. , and Olaniyi, O. M[3] have developed an RFID based Attendance System that are commonly used nowadays to keep track of attendance for community organizations such as educational institutions, business organizations etc. Similar project was undertaken by Nurbek Saparkhojayev and Selim Guvercin[4]. Fonseca, J. Santos, V.[2] with the help of two technologies namely Embedded system and Biometrics. Arulogun O. T. , Olatunbosun, A. , Fakolujo O. A. , and Olaniyi, O. M[3] have developed an RFID based Attendance System that are commonly used nowadays to keep track of attendance for community organizations such as educational institutions, business organizations etc. Similar project was undertaken by Nurbek Saparkhojayev and Selim Guvercin[4]. 3. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE 3.1 Client side architecture The RFID reader is connected to client computer. The reader is usually on and continuously senses its field of operation. Whenever a tag enters its vicinity, it sends an electromagnetic wave to the tag. The tag reflects back the wave along with its unique identification number. The java application for taking attendance is executed using shell script. A lecturer needs to authenticate himself by logging into the system. If the response is positive, the lecturer is redirected to the ‘take attendance’ panel where he needs to enter the subject name for which he wants to take attendance. The subject name is validated using database and a python code is executed for reading tags, checking redundancy and creating an XML file containing tagIDs. The XML file is sent to the server for further processing. At the end the XML file is deleted from the client PC.