[ale] RFID Systems

[Doug Hall]

Wow, that's some great info. I was thinking of a small computer with (the
hammer that I'm familiar with) a Ruby on Rails application which contains
one table that describes the items, linked to another table for the unique
data (where the unique RFID codes are), and perhaps a table for users, etc.
Not really a difficult database. I might even use SQLite as the DB. The
point of the app is simply to store what's supposed to be in the truck, so
that when they finish a project and prepare to leave, they can find out
what's missing. We could use the antennas by each door, and do the in/out
approach, but I think it would be equally acceptable to wave a wand all
throughout the truck, when they want to account for things, and have the
application tell them which items, if any, were last scanned more than #
minutes ago. I think that our project managers have iPhones, so they could
be used to interface with the Rails App, and possibly with the wand (if
necessary).

The small SBC sounds interesting. I'm pretty sure they have power, but I
need to get some more specifics about the environment. Your SBC with a
wireless card is intriguing. I don't have a lot of experience with SBCs.
(Just my Raspberry Pi.) If you can send me some links to the equipment
you're thinking about (both SBC and antennas), that would be SO helpful.
You sound like you've had some experience, so if you can recommend certain
hardware that you've had success with, that would be awesome. A quick
Google of SBCs give me too many options to be useful.

Much appreciated!
Doug


On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 7:54 PM, Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net>wrote:

> A tiny SBC on the back-end is probably all you'll need to do live
> inventory.  Put a wireless card/dongle on it and set it up for AP mode to
> let any WiFi enabled smart phone, laptop or otherwise access it, no cell
> connection needed.  It also would give you persistent storage which you
> could save and transfer later to do things like determine what equipment is
> used (or not used) and how (in)frequently it gets used (useful for space
> management on the truck).
>
> The best thing for inventory is to put RFID antennas on the inside and
> outside of the truck doors (one pair per access point to the gear).  As the
> equipment enters and leaves, you get tag information and direction (outside
> before inside, item going in; inside before outside, item going out).  That
> makes it idiot resistant and doesn't require any user to actively think
> about scanning/wanding/etc.  I was setting up a similar system for chemical
> inventory at a semiconductor research fab.  The chemical bottles were all
> tagged.  A bottle going into the chemical cabinet registered +1 inventory
> and a user pulling out a bottle registered a -1.
>
> Some of the higher quality readers will report multiple tags at once which
> means a Pelican case full of individually tagged items can all be
> inventoried in one pass through the antennas.
>
>
> On 5/21/2013 17:20, Doug Hall wrote:
>
>> I'm researching the use of RFID tags for inventory control for a truck
>> full
>> of expensive video equipment. At the end of a project, our employees need
>> to be able to do a quick inventory of all the equipment on the truck, and
>> be able to quickly account for its contents. Ideally, the system could
>> leverage an iPhone front end but be served by an open-source back end -
>> perhaps a Rails application that I can write. They may not have internet
>> access, though. Sometimes the truck is needed in locations without
>> cellular
>> access. So, if the application could work offline, that would be great.
>> It's not mandatory, though. Perhaps all I need to do is learn how to do
>> local storage in html5.
>>
>> Any advice or suggestions would be welcomed - especially if you have
>> direct
>> experience with RFID. I've written an inventory tracking system which uses
>> bar codes, but for as many (sometimes small) items as they need to track
>> on
>> this truck, that would take too long. Also, it can be a separate and
>> simpler system than what I've done.
>>
>> Thanks for the advice.
>>
>> Doug
>>
>>
>>
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