International Conference on Recent Innovations in Nanoscience and Technology 2018 (ICRINT2018)

26th – 28thDecember, 2018

Yangon, Myanmar

Web Server Base RFID Attendance Record System

Zaw Lin Oo1, Theint Win Lai2, Maung Maung Than3
1(
Department of Research and Innovation, Division of Atomic Energy, No. (123), Natmauk Road, Bahan Township,
Yangon, Myanmar) ([email protected])
2(
Faculty of Computer System and Technology, University of Computer Studies (Sittway),
Rakhine State, Myanmar) ([email protected])
3(
Department of Research and Innovation, Division of Atomic Energy, No. (123), Natmauk Road, Bahan Township,
Yangon, Myanmar) ([email protected])

Abstract
Nowadays, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems have been the rise in the number of
applications and successfully applied to different areas such as manufacturing and processing, supply chain
management, retail, security, and location tracking systems. Web Server Base RFID Attendance Record
System can be used in different places in schools to register the attendance of students, private organizations
and automatically record the arrival time in the office and other similar kinds of applications. In this paper, the
student’s attendance record is stored in a MySQL database by using MFRC522 RFID readers and RFID tag
card. Each student is provided RFID tag card for authorized entrance to school by reading RFID reader and
record their attendance data. This project is capable of eliminating time wasted during collection of roll calls
as it is done manually and helps enhance classroom security.
This system can solve the problem such as the students cheat their attendance, lost of attendance sheet,
and many students by asking their friends to help them to correct their attendance if they absent. MFRC522
RFID unit, Arduino Uno, Ethernet Shield are used in this project to submit all student's data for storage in the
MySQL database system. PHP and HTML with CSS languages are used for creating web server of RFID
Attendance Record System. The System webpage can be easily accessed by the teachers and authorized
persons via the client computers which connect with the web server and can be seen in real-time processing of
what student is registering now and providing valuable information about the student’s attending record of the
relevant classes.
Keywords: Arduino Uno, Ethernet Shield, HTML with CSS, MySQL, PHP, RFID
1. INTRODUCTION
RFID Technology can be effectively employed in number of applications such as student monitoring and
attendance record systems, tracking the transit transports due to its penchant for efficiency. Attendance record
system is a system used to verify names of students or employees and information in a list of order. The
attendance record system can be helped to attend on time, to uniquely identify that make security for campus
and will automatically record the all attendance. Two traditional methods for tracking the attendance of the
students in the classroom by calling student’s name or taking student’s signature and that make time
consuming and may not be optimal for larger classes. So, Biometrics techniques are used to verify
identification through their characteristics like face recognition, signatures, fingerprint, voice recognition,
irises, barcode, Bluetooth, Near-Field Communication (NFC), RFID and so on 1,2. This study have been
conducted to propose web server based attendance record system to identify, record, and display the attending
list of the students and employees in school and industries respectively. Web server based RFID attendance
record system is an automatic attendance system which consists of Arduino UNO microcontroller board,
Arduino Wiznet Ethernet W5100 Shield, RFID reader, RFID tag and MySQL database as its primary
components. Each student was provided RFID tag serves as a unique identification card. A student places his
identification card in the proximity of RFID reader which detects the unique ID and student profiles present in
the identification card. Profile of the students and attendance time are stored in database. This data can be used
to record and calculate the attendance percentage of the students/employees in class/organizations.
2. SYSTEM DESIGN
The web-based student attendance system using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology pro-
motes semiautomated recording of student attendance, developed especially for the university. In drawing the
system design, a number of web-based methods and frameworks have been reviewed and referred 3,4. Some
comparisons performed on the different technologies being used in the similar systems were also learnt 5. Re-
lated research on the system development and testing were also reviewed to provide guidance in customizing
and evaluating the process, while learning the disciplined approach in designing the proposed system 6,7.
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 International Conference on Recent Innovations in Nanoscience and Technology 2018 (ICRINT2018)
26th – 28thDecember, 2018
Yangon, Myanmar

The proposed system consists of three main modules namely the RFID data reading module, Data input
to database module and data report to web server and client module. MFRC522 RFID readers, RFID tag card
and Arduino UNO microcontroller board are included in RFID data reading module. Arduino Wiznet Ethernet
W5100 Shield with Arduino UNO microcontroller board processed for Data input to database module by
using PHP to MySQL database system of XAMPP. CSS, HTML and PHP programming languages are used
for data report to web server and client module .The general process flow is illustrated in Fig. 1. (a), where all
of these components are involved and operational. The overall architecture of the system is illustrated in Fig.
1. (b), where the three main components are shown. Each of these components will be described in the
following subsections.

Fig. 1. (a) system process (b) System Architecture of the Web Server Base RFID Attendance and Record System

2.1 RFID Reader and Tag

RFID reader is the device capable of reading and retrieving information stored inside the RFID tags.
There are two types of RFID reader, which are the active and passive RFID readers. The RFID reader being
used in the system is reader of Mifare 13.56Mhz RC522 RFID Card Reader Module for reading passive RFID
tags. Mifare RC522 is the high integrated RFID card reader which works on non-contact 13.56mhz
communication, is designed by NXP as a low power consumption, low cost and compact size read and write
chip, is the best choice in the development of smart meters and portable hand-held devices 8. Each RFID tag
has a unique serial number or ID. In this research work, the student cards being used to identify each
individual student are the RFID cards that consist of passive RFID tag, which do not require internal battery 3.
When such cards are placed near the field generated by a compatible Reader, they transmit information back
to the Reader 4. Figure 2 illustrates how data transmission is performed between an RFID reader and a RFID
card of student.

Fig. 2. Data transmission between RFID reader and RFID card for students
2.2 Arduino UNO
The Arduino UNO is the best board to get started with electronics and coding. The UNO is the most used
and documented board of the whole Arduino family. Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the
ATmega328P. The Uno board is the first in a series of USB Arduino boards, and the reference model for the
Arduino platform 9.
2.3 Arduino Ethernet Shield
The Arduino Ethernet Shield allows an Arduino board to connect to the internet. Arduino Ethernet Shield
which is based on the Wiznet W5100 ethernet chip is used in this system. It has 14 digital input/output pins, 6
analog inputs, a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a RJ45 connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset
button. The Wiznet W5100 provides a network (IP) stack capable of both TCP and UDP. It supports up to
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 International Conference on Recent Innovations in Nanoscience and Technology 2018 (ICRINT2018)
26th – 28thDecember, 2018
Yangon, Myanmar

four simultaneous socket connections. Use the Ethernet library to write sketches which connect to the internet
using the shield. The shield provides a standard RJ45 ethernet jack and the reset button on the shield resets
both the W5100 and the Arduino board 10.
2.4 Web Server
The web server here refers to either hardware (computer) or software (application) that helps to deliver
content publicly accessible through the Internet. It provides the web site functionality by accepting requests
from the user’s browser and responds by sending back HTML documents (Web pages) and files. To enable
the system dynamic functionalities, the web server hosts the data collector component, a database and the
graphical user interface (GUI) pages enabling online interaction with the system users from client computers.
In this research work, XAMPP is installed and tested on a local PC using the Apache HTTP server component
of the XAMPP package 11.

2.5 Database
A database is a structured collection of data and adds, access, and process data stored in a computer.
MySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database management system, is developed, distributed, and
supported by Oracle Corporation is used in our project to store the students data that captures by RFID reader.
Databases process workloads to create and update themselves, querying the data they contain and running
applications against it 12.

2.6 Graphical User Interface (GUI)

In this Research work, The GUI component is simply a way to present information of the attendance
system to visual indication like table. The academic staffs and family teachers can get unique access to enter
the system to see the daily attendance record of the students and monitor the information of the students. The
GUI system developed in this research is dynamic web page form which driven by MySQL database. In this
web page that grabs information from a database which is connected by PHP programming and inserts that
information into the web page each time it is loaded. The authorize user registration and login of the web page
and retrieve data from database and display on web page are includes software design of this system.
3. SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
3.1 Software Design
This section is system interfacing of hardware components and design of the main web page. PHP and
HTML with CSS Language are used to develop the web page and connection with database. For web-server
platform, XAMPP software is used. XAMPP is the software that has complete PHP, Apache, and MySQL
web development environment 13. The mySQL tool in XAMPP is PHPMyAdmin 14. User data and students
information are stored in MySQl database as two tables.
The web pages has two main section consists of user registration, login and web portal which shown the
live attendance of a student and recorded attendance of individual class. Family teachers need to register for
secure access of Web Server Base RFID Attendance and Record System. Sing up, login, reset password and
sing out options are included in registration and login web Portal. In the main page of web portal, the user can
see that who is registering now with RFID card including student information and all the attendance records of
individual class.
In this system, connection between database and the RFID devices is implemented by using PHP script
file. The devices sent the data to database and display require information of the students from database. PHP
language has been used to read the data from RFID devices or tags, save that data in MySQL database and
querying the data and then display desire data in main web portal.
3.2 Hardware Design
RFID and Arduino UNO microcontroller board devices are used as the main components in hardware
design of the project. Low cost reader of Mifare 13.56Mhz RC522 RFID Card Reader Module with passive
RFID tags was used. RFID tags and cards are used registration of attendance time for students. Arduino Uno
microcontroller is selected for data transfer from RFID card to the web-server. 5 ports Ethernet switch is used
for the connection of Ethernet Shield Module, Server computer and client computers by using RJ45 Network
LAN Cable with RJ45 connectors at both ends.

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 International Conference on Recent Innovations in Nanoscience and Technology 2018 (ICRINT2018)
26th – 28thDecember, 2018
Yangon, Myanmar

Fig. 7. hardware connection of attendance record system

4. TESTING RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Several RFID tags and cards were tested to input student’s data and timestamp to database by using
RFID Reader. Each RFID tag and card has unique ID and used to register for student in attendance system.
The ID that not register in system is not store in database and make a alarm signal from buzzer. The user
registration of web application, password reset, and showing students attendance record of each class are
conducted in testing session. RFID reader and Arduino Uno are connected in shown in Fig. 7. Each RFID
cards and tags is read to detect the unique id of the cards by using c language of Arduino IDE and shown ID
numbers in com port terminal of Arduino IDE. Next step is the sending data of each card, when the unique ID
RFID card is detected and successfully matched the data and timestamp were sent in the system database and
stored. The stored data can check under the phpMyAdmin of rfiddata table shown in fig. 8.

Fig. 8. MySQL database to store student’s attendance data

The data from the hardware device and pass to the database software system was communicated by using
LAN interfacing. So, Arduino Ethernet shield and server computer that installed MySQL database was
connected RJ45 network cable and assigned unique IP address. To access the portals including main page and
attendance record of individual class, user authentication page is provided in order to prevent unauthorized
access to confidential data. Fig. 9. (a) and (b) shows the login and signup web portal of the system.

Fig. 9. (a) Login (b) signup pages of web portal

Fig. 10. home page for attendance record system with Arduino output results

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 International Conference on Recent Innovations in Nanoscience and Technology 2018 (ICRINT2018)
26th – 28thDecember, 2018
Yangon, Myanmar

Fig. 11. grade 3 and grade 2 attendance record results

User authentication is verified with the user name and password that match the data stored in the users
table of system database. When the login process was successful, the web-based system automatically
redirects to the welcome page of web portal. At the welcome page, the user can see the basic information of
web page, live attendance of student, password reset and account sing out options can see. The user can view
the student attendance record of each class with attending date and time.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The research project can initialize at small and private schools after that promote the application in the
universities and campus. This research work provides several advantages for the capability of eliminating time
wasted during collection of roll calls as it is done manually and helps enhance classroom security. The
attendance records stored directly to the database, and the user can see the daily record of the attendance. All
processes of the student attendance record are performed online, administrators and family teachers allowed to
view the record through any client computers via the web browser. But administrators and family teachers
can’t modify the record data, the database system installed at the server computer and protected by the
password. This system is low cost and is portable, can be carried easily to the proper place for the collection of
student’s attendance. This system can be improved and upgraded further, e.g by adding the system with new
features such as student’s attendance evaluation, grading results of the students and distributions of
complementary documents for students to download, sending an SMS of student who absent the attendance to
their parents and by upgrading the web-interface layout with new display style.

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