INTRODUCTION

The COVID pandemic has affected the livelihood of people in different forms by making it harder for them to live. One of the sections which were affected adversely by this pandemic was the daily waged workers. The marking of attendance was the main problem for them because the formation of the crowd at a headquarters to mark their attendance caused the spread of infection. The usage of the Online RFID attendance system helps the people working for daily wages to mark their attendance accurately. It enables them to mark their attendance at their respective sites of work without directly reporting to headquarters. This helps in decreasing the crowding for marking attendance and thereby reduces the spread of COVID. The Attendance system has enormous benefits as it can be developed at an affordable rate. With it maintaining daily attendance on Google Spreadsheets without any Human control. The monthly attendance record of staff can be assembled in a single place and format. RFID is being used actively in retail, healthcare, and other sectors to monitor workers. Since the workers in these sectors are large in number, hard to handle and their work can be performed by others in case of absenteeism; there the attendance mechanism is of trivial significance. The System provides more accurate identification. This system can be used to take attendance for workers in working places. Its ability to uniquely identify each person based on their RFID tag type of ID card and upload the data directly to the server will make the process of taking the attendance easier, faster, and secure as compared to the conventional method. It Identifies candidates in seconds. The System is less tedious, cost-efficient, easy to carry and use, hard to adulterate, and modest. This Online RFID attendance system reduces the chance of COVID Infection spreading among workers in different sectors, also the time can be saved.

WORKING PRINCIPLE

The Attendance system mainly consists of 4 hardware components, ESP32 is the brain or microcontroller of the system. RC522 is an MFRC522 based RFID Reader Module. RC522 is a highly integrated RFID card reader which works on Non-Contact 13.56MHz Communication, and it is designed by NXP as low power consumption, low cost, and compact size read and write chip. The module uses a 3.3V power supply. The Reader Module is connected to the ESP32 board using SPI Communication. The system also contains 2 LEDs as indicators. All the wiring is done on the BreadBoard. The programming part of the Microcontroller is done in Arduino IDE Software using external open-source libraries. The connection or data transfer between the ESP32 and Google Spreadsheet is done using the IFTTT platform. It connects to the ESP32 board using Webhook API services with an authentication code and then the webhook establishes a connection to the specified Spreadsheet API. Hence IFTTT helps in automating the services by creating an Applet. The system is powered by a 5V USB power supply. It can also be powered using a Li-ion battery for external usage.

Initially, when the ESP32 is powered up it tries to connect to a particular WiFi network of 2.4GHz band with a predefined Username and Password. Hence the user has to set this beforehand. The Peculiarity of this system is that, to establish a connection between the system and the online server, a mobile hotspot is sufficient. When the system gets connected to the specified WiFi network, the green LED starts blinking 5 times. Otherwise, the red LED blinks 5 times. After that, when the employee swipes the RFID tag, Green LED will blink for a few seconds indicating that the data has been read and sent successfully to the spreadsheet server. Otherwise, the Green LED will blink continuously without stopping, indicating that it failed to send data to the server. Hence, WiFi or Internet connection has to be re-checked and the Attendance system has to be restarted.

When the attendance data is transmitted to the Spreadsheet server it gets stored there, then using Google Apps Script the data is manipulated. In our case, we have two sheets inside a Spreadsheet. One sheet is for storing everyday entry and exit data of employees and another sheet is for storing information about the count of the number of days worked by employees individually. The Apps Script is set to trigger at a certain time as per the user requirement. In our case, we have set it for a morning at 9 AM and in the evening at 5 PM. When the entry of employees is recorded in the sheet, the script triggers and data is manipulated as programmed after that in the evening the exit of employees is also recorded in the sheet and then script triggers. The script is triggered twice in order to verify that the persons entered in the morning are also present while exiting the workplace. If any of the employees forget to record their entry and exit, then that will not be considered as a workday on the server.

Hence, if needed to change, then the admin has permission to edit the server data. Also If employees try to swipe their RFID tag or ID more than once at entry or exit, then also the data will be considered as a single entry or exit for that day. If a new employee has joined and has to be added to the server, then the admin can register the name and RFID tag number to the server. Then the script will automatically start counting the number of days worked by the employee. The link to the code and library is available in Github.

BUDGET ESTIMATION

Hardware Costs approximately less than or equal to ₹1000 including a 1500mAh Li-ion battery (18650) which gives about nearly 4hrs of continuous usage since the current consumption of Hardware varies between 300-500mA. On the Software side, IFTTT Standard package provides free usage of applets which includes Webhook and Google Sheet API. Also, 3 applets can be created per user, but for this system, a single applet is only required. Google spreadsheet is free to use and Spreadsheet API provides 100 requests per 100 seconds per user for free which is sufficient for this system. Also, Google Apps Script is free and open to use.

CONCLUSION

RFID technology is evolving and the applications of RFID technology are vast. The proposed approach provides a method to mark the attendance of workers without physical contact and recording. Everything is automated. So the system will be helpful at tough times like this pandemic. This project is to simplify the attendance recorder system by using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and easily calculate the wages of the employees. The end-users,i.e. the workers just need to swipe their card over the RFID reader and automatically their attendance or presence will be marked. Since the system is portable and easy to carry, it can be transported anywhere. This system can shift the paradigm of monitoring everyone and helps to conserve time and effort.