2019 1st International Conference on Advances in Information Technology
IoT based Smart Attendance Monitoring System
using RFID
Unnati Koppikar[1], Shobha Hiremath[2], Akshata Shiralkar[3] , Akshata Rajoor[4] , V. P. Baligar [5]
1
unnatikoppikar@gmail.com, 2shobhahiremath38@gmail.com, 3gsakshata@gmail.com,
4
rajur.akshata@yahoo.com, 5vpbaligar@kletech.ac.in
School of Computer Science and Engineering
KLE Technological University, Hubli
Abstract— Most of the institutional authorities are
troubled with the cumbersome method of maintaining
manual attendance of their employees. The manual
process of signing on a paper is prolonged and insecure.
An efficient attendance monitoring system needs to be
enforced at such places. Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) based attendance system provides us with a
solution that caters to issues like proxy attendance. This
paper describes the design of an RFID based attendance
monitoring system which uniquely identifies each
employee/student based on their RFID tag which is
attached to their ID card. This makes the mechanism of
recording the attendance effortless, quicker and protected
as compared to conventional method. This system is
designed to be used at different educational institutions,
corporate offices, government offices etc. The proposed
system consist of both hardware and software components
based on IoT Technology. The hardware component
consists of RC522 RFID card reader and RFID tags/cards.
The software component consists of the Web-based GUI
for viewing the employee’s or student’s attendance, which
is hosted on a web server and which stores the data in a
database server. The employees or students just need to
place their RFID card or tag on the reader and their
attendance will be recorded for the day. Also, the
attendance recorded will be more accurate as the system is
synced with a real-time clock.
Index Terms—RFID, IoT, RC522, Attendance
Monitoring.
I. INTRODUCTION
Attendance plays a very important role in any organization.
Attendance in many organizations, college and schools are
paper-based. When paper-based attendance is considered, the
chances of error are high. Using technology this issue can be
solved and the papers can be avoided in this process. There are
many technologies that support to solve this issue. But best
among them is RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) [1] as
the names suggest it uses the radio waves to identify and track
the object or individual. The communication with respect to
RFID is wireless using an electromagnetic and electrostatic
coupling, where a radio frequency of spectrum is used to
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communicate [2]. For demonstrating the results, the system is
built using RFID card reader module of the model RC522
RFID card reader and RFID cards/tags [3].
The RFID system consists of RFID tag (or card) and RFID
reader. The tag (or card) has a unique ID which is initially
stored in the database before assigning it to the user. The user
has to place the tag at a specific distance from the RFID reader
so as to log the attendance. The tag consists of a microchip
that helps to store unique sequence number that is useful in
identifying objects. The microchip includes micro circuitry
and an embedded silicon chip. The tag has a rewritable and
permanent memory which can be repeatedly programmed by
multiple times.
The RFID reader is the most fundamental part of the RFID
system. The RFID reader used in detection has a maximum
range of around 5cm above the reader and operates at
frequency of 125 kHz and 12V power supply. RFID tag (or
card) is used to exchange data with the RFID reader using the
radio waves where the tag is made up of the antenna which
receives the radio waves and the other component is an
integrated circuit which is mainly to process and store the
data. It reads the raw data from the tag and transmits it to the
middle-ware for processing. Tags at varying frequencies are
interrogated by the reader. The reader is further connected to
the computer for processing the data this can be done via a
USB connector or any wireless connection. This type of
simple system where scanning of the tag towards the reader
makes the work quite easier and improves the rate of error.
Also, the long procedure of attendance is cut short to a single
move/step.
The smart attendance management system removes the
traditional way of registering the attendance [4]. It also
provides a secure, error-free method of attendance
management. The administrators can be at ease by employing
such a smart attendance system. The system is best suited for
managing the attendance of employees. It can also be used to
record attendance for students at their hostels.
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II. MOTIVATION
The traditional way for marking and maintaining attendance
has several drawbacks such as it’s difficult to maintain
manual records, proxy attendance may be marked etc.
Tracking and tracing attendance becomes harder. The IoT
technology based attendance system such as sensors;
biometric based attendance system reduced human
involvement and errors. Every organization whether it is an
educational institution or any organization has to maintain a
proper attendance of students, employees for effective
functioning of the organization. By designing a user-friendly
IoT based attendance management system, the
employees/students can record their attendance with ease.
This would improve the accuracy of attendance records and
also saves the valuable time of the students and employees.
III. RELATED WORK
Smart Attendance Management is a solution to one of the
most challenging and long standing problems in management
of employee or student’s attendance. For IoT based Smart
Attendance Management, there are several attempts made by
many researchers in this direction.
A. Kassem, et al., has proposed their work titled “An RFID
Attendance and Monitoring System for University
Applications” [5]. The authors have proposed a system
basically focuses on the factors such as reliability, time saving
and easy control. A prototype is defined using RFID system
where the reader and tag are considered. Here the attempt is
made to modify the RFID so as to setup the complete
application on a large scale. The application has three modules
Student, Faculty and Administrator. The implementation is
only applicable for a small scale setup.
Sumita Nainan, et al., has proposed their work titled “RFID
Technology Based Attendance Management System” [6] .In the
paper the author describes the distinctive components of RFID
technology and highlights the core competencies such as
scalability and security. A deep study towards the feasibility
and practicality of RFID technology is carried out. The
outcomes are identified as the key benefits of RFID
technology where the main focus is to improve the efficiency
at lower cost.
T.S. Lim, et al., has proposed their work titled “RFID Based
Attendance System” [7]. The authors through this paper
attempts to focus on the issue of student irregular attendance.
The proposed system tends to implemented in schools,
colleges and universities. The system used RFID system to
complete the system which uses a real time clock which helps
to gain accurate results. The proposed system is connected to
the computer using RS232 (USB) to store the data into the
database. The data is viewed using software called
HyperTerminal. The system tends to be vital and customer
oriented, with physical advantages as light weight, compact
design and portable.
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H. K. Nguyen, et al., has proposed their work in the paper
titled "RFID-based attendance management system" [8]. The
authors have developed an automated attendance management
system that can be put into use at any gatherings such as
conferences, exhibitions, training courses, etc. and can be
scaled from small to large venues depending on the need. The
system is developed using RFID based on the mobile
communication and IT technologies. The system collects
records and processes data on participants of any conference
or events. The system is designed to generate real-time
consolidated reports on attendance, the number of attendees of
the event and a record about the participants during the event.
This can be done for a specific distance from the event, and
during an extended period of time. MRF24WB0MA Module is
used for the development.
Van-Dung Hoang, et al., has proposed their work titled “A
solution based on combination of RFID tags and facial
recognition for monitoring systems” [9]. The authors have
contributed to present a solution based on combination of
facial recognition and RFID (radio frequency identification)
tags for the office’s surveillance monitoring system (SMS).
The SMS is built based on two main techniques to building
smart systems which consist of face recognition technology
and RFID tag recognition which will enable the admin to
monitor employee attendance when they are enter or leave the
office. The authors have used the deep neural network for
employing the face recognition module. The system is
connected to the SQL Server database at the backend to store
and retrieve employee's information that will help in
monitoring and managing the employee's attendance. They
have used MFRC522 as the RFID card Reader. The face
recognition accuracy was calculated to be 95.22%
Mahesh Sutar, et al., has proposed their work titled “Smart
Attendance System Using RFID In IOT” [10]. The authors have
thrown light to the issue of monitoring and recording
attendance manually. An effort is made to solve regular
lecture attendance monitoring problem by using the RFID
technology. They have included SMS feature which will
intimate the parents if the student has attended the classes for
the day. An SMS alert is sent to the parent incase the student
is absent for the day. This saves the time from recording the
attendance manually and also prevents the students from
bunking the classes. The system is implemented using RFID
card readers.
Norakmar Arbain, et al., have proposed their work titled
“LAS: Web-based Laboratory Attendance System by
integrating RFID-ARDUINO Technology” [11]. The authors
have discussed about the issues faced while managing
student’s attendance in laboratories session especially when
the sessions are conducted in parallel. As this process is time
consuming the authors has proposed a web based RFID-
ARDUINO system which also helps them to manage student's
experiment marks. The designed website caters to
administrator, staff and student's needs. The system allows the
staff to monitor attendance and to enter marks while the
students have the facility to view these details.
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Md. Sajid Akbar, et al., have proposed their work titled

“Face Recognition and RFID Verified Attendance System”
[12]
, The authors have proposed a system which incorporates
student's attendance monitoring system with face recognition
along with RFID card reader. This system keeps track of all
the registered students and registers their attendance as the
student enters or leaves the class room by recognizing each
individual student's face and simultaneously verifying by the
RFID. Thus they have been successful in eliminating the
manual effort.

IV. IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS

A. Block Design

Fig 4.1: System’s Block Design

To build a Smart IoT based Attendance Management

System there is a need to integrate different hardware
components such as RFID Card Reader with the Arduino
UNO which in turn needs to be connected with the Computer
through which data communication and data handling takes
place. The LED lights are used to signal the users of the
Success or Failure Scenarios when their card is made to sense
against the card reader. RFID Tags or RFID Cards are used to
read the user’s data. These tags may contain an RFID number
which is read and recorded by the system. The RFID tags or
card can contain user’s information such as student-id or
employee-id, user name, department etc. Thus the Smart
Attendance Management System is build by basic blocks as
shown in the Fig 4.1 which comprises of both the software and
the hardware component.
B. Process Flow
The Fig 4.2 describes the flow of the logging in the
attendance through the system that is built using RFID
technology.
Fig 4.2: Process Flow Diagram
The user must be registered in the system for the Smart
Attendance Monitoring system to identify the user. The
user’s information may be stored in the RFID card or
tag. Once the user swipes the card against the RFID card
reader, The Card reader senses the RFID card/tag
number stored on it. This card number is searched in the
database, if the user is found the user’s login time is
noted and a green LED light glows to indicate the user’s
login time is recorded by the system. If the user was not
authenticated, i.e. the user’s information is not stored in
the local database the user is not authenticated by the
system and hence is not authorized and this is indicated
when a red LED light glows.
Only if the user has a valid login time recorded against
the user’s RFID number the user log out time can be
recorded once the user leaves the organization and
swipes the card again. Once again a green LED light
glows to indicate the user’s logout time is recorded by
the system.

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C. Circuit Diagram
To begin with implementation, Arduino UNO is
connected to MFRC522. Once the connection is set up,
the library for The RFID module is downloaded and
configured to the Arduino UNO.

Following is the Pin Configuration for the

Implementation Setup.

Fig 4.4: User Interface for the IoT System

Fig 4.3: Circuit Diagram Connection

D. Working Principle of RFID Module

Radio-frequency identification module (RFID) contains
electromagnetic fields to identify and track card attached to Fig 4.5: User Interface to View Attendance Logged
objects. RFID works on a principle called Automatic
Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) technology. The
card contains electronically stored information which is
read by a nearby RFID reader's interrogating radio waves.
There are two types of tags available which are Active tag
and Passive tag. The Active tags have a power source (such
as a battery) and capable to operate at hundreds of meters
while the passive tags have no battery and it draws it from
the reader itself. When a RFID tag placed in the proximity
of the RFID reader then the information is read by the
reader. The information read by the reader through the
Arduino module is further processed to fetch the desired
information.
E. Graphical User Interface for Attendance Monitoring
The system is designed for the Administrator of any Fig 4.6: User Interface to Add Student Details
organization to monitor the presence of students or
employees of their organization. By deploying such a web The student’s can register themselves through the User
application on servers or cloud, the administrators can Interface provided. The students can scan the RFID card to
access this data from anywhere and at any time. This makes know the RFID card number, along with the card details
our IoT system more user-friendly and convenient to use. student details such as Name, University Seat Number etc can
be recorded as shown in Fig 4.6. Further when the student’s
Following are screenshots of the screens designed for the log their attendance daily by flashing their RFID cards in front
user interface of the Smart Attendance Monitoring System. of the card reading module. The attendance gets recorded
which can be fetched by the Administrator to view the details
of time when the student has entered the institution as shown
in Fig 4.5. Also there is a facility provided for the Admin to
notify the student’s parents who reach late or remain absent
for the day. There was a provision to add the employee details

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and monitor them.

[3] A. Digital and R. Technology, “Classic RFID module products,”
V. RESULTS no.April, 2008.
The experimental results show that, the proposed system
designed for attendance management, has provided [4] D. Mane, “Importance and Analysis of RFID in Attendance
significant results in managing attendance through RFID System,” International Journal of Emerging Science and Engineering
system, it has revolutionized the method of registering the (IJESE) no. 9, pp. 90–92, 2013.
attendance. The web GUI provided gives better clarity of
the attendance registered and also helps in generating [5] A. Kassem, M.Hamad, Z. Chalhoub, and S. EI Dahdaah, “An
reports as and when needed. The striking feature of the RFID Attendance and Monitoring System for University
Applications”, 17th IEEE International Conference on Electronics,
smart IoT based attendance monitoring system is that, the
Circuits and Systems-2010
administrator can access this data, anytime and anywhere.
This helps the administrator to have a control over the [6] Sumita Nainan, Romin Parekh, Tanvi Shah, “RFID Technology
attendance management without the need of being Based Attendance ManagementSystem”, IJCSI International Journal
physically present at the location. of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 10 -January 2013
The proposed system is tested with different RFID cards
and RFID tags and is successful in recognizing the RFID [7] T.S. Lim, S.C. Sim and M.M. Mansor, “RFID Based Attendance
cards that are registered. The system is tested for all the System”, IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics and
conditions with two RFID numbers. Following test cases Applications (ISIEA 2009), October 4-6, 2009, Kuala Lumpur,
Malay-2009
were subjected to the system and the results obtained were
noted. [8] H. K. Nguyen, M. T. Chew, “RFID-Based Attendance
Management System”, 2nd Workshop on Recent Trends in
Table 4.1: Summary of Testing Telecommunications Research (RTTR)-2017
# Test Case Expected Result
[9] Van-Dung Hoang ,Van-Dat Dang , Tien-Thanh Nguyen, Diem-
Description Outcome Phuc Tran, “A solution based on Combination of RFID tags and
1 Tag1-Registered Tag 1- Pass PASS facial recognition for monitoring systems”, 5th NAFOSTED
Tag2- Not Registered Tag 2 - Fail Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS) – 2018
2 Tag1- Not Registered Tag 1- Fail PASS
Tag2- Registered Tag 2 - Pass [10] Mahesh Sutar, Mahesh Patil, Sachin Waghmare, “Smart
3 Tag1-Registered Tag 1- Pass PASS Attendance System Using RFID In IOT”, International Journal of
Tag2- Registered Tag 2 - Pass Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology
(IJARCET) Volume 5, Issue 4-April 2016
4 Tag1- Not Registered Tag 1- Fail PASS
Tag2- Not Registered Tag 2 - Fail [11] Norakmar Arbain, Noor Firdaus Nordin, Naimah Mat Isa,
Shuria Saaidin, “LAS: Web-based Laboratory Attendance System by
integrating RFID-ARDUINO Technology”, 2nd International
VI. CONCLUSION Conference on Electrical, Electronics and System Engineering
(ICEESE), 2014
Through the proposed IoT based smart attendance system
using RFID the existing manual system of registering the [12] Md. Sajid Akbar, Pronob Sarker, Ahmad Tamim Mansoor, Abu
attendance can be transformed into an efficient and error-free Musa Al Ashray, Jia Uddin, “Face Recognition and RFID Verified
attendance management system. By employing this system Attendance System”, 2018 International Conference on Computing,
information can be conveyed without a hitch. The proposed Electronics & Communications Engineering (iCCECE), 2018
system will be of great help in schools, colleges and any
organizations to monitor their students or employees.
Although there are different methods of managing the
student’s or employee’s attendance, the proposed system is
easy to handle and very convenient for any organization. The
proposed system is time-saving, user-friendly and reliable to
use.

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