Web-based Student Attendance System using

RFID Technology
Narayana Reddy.B, Devraj.B
Department of ECE,NIET,JNTUH,Associative Professor,NIET
narayanareddyhyd@gmail.com,devraj@gmail.com




Abstract This paper describes the development of a student
attendance system based on Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) technology. The existing conventional attendance system
requires students to manually sign the attendance sheet every
time they attend a class. As common as it seems, such system
lacks of automation, where a number of problems may arise. This
include the time unnecessarily consumed by the students to find
and sign their name on the attendance sheet, some students may
mistakenly or purposely signed another students name and the
attendance sheet may got lost. Having a system that can
automatically capture students attendance by flashing their
student card at the RFID reader can really save all the mentioned
troubles. This is the main motive of our system and in addition
having an online system accessible anywhere and anytime can
greatly help the lecturers to keep track of their students
attendance. Looking at a bigger picture, deploying the system
throughout the academic faculty will benefit the academic
management as students attendance to classes is one of the key
factor in improving the quality of teaching and monitoring their
students performance. Besides, this system provides valuable
online facilities for easy record maintenance offered not only to
lecturers but also to related academic management staffs
especially for the purpose of students progress monitoring.

Keywords-RFI D, students attendance, online system, web,
sensor

I. INTRODUCTION
The most common means of tracking student attendance in
the classroom is by enforcing the students to manually sign the
attendance sheet, which is normally passed around the classroom
while the lecturer is conducting the lecture. There are numerous
disadvantages of using such system. For instance, lecturers with a
large class may find the hassle of having the attendance sheet
being passed around the class and the manual signing of
attendance by students are burdensome and most likely distract
them from teaching and getting full attention from the students
[1]. Besides, as the attendance sheet is passed around the class,
some students may accidentally or purposely sign another
student's name. The first case leads to a student missing out their
name, while the latter leads to a false attendance record. Another
issue of having the attendance record in a hardcopy form is that a
lecturer may lose the attendance sheet [2]. As a consequence of
that, lecturer can no longer trace the students overall attendance
record throughout the particular semester. Apart from that, a
lecturer also has limited access to the single-copy record, e.g.
only at the work


place. In terms of attendance analysis, the lecturer also has to
perform manual computation to obtain the students
attendance percentage, which normally consume a lot of time.
Having said the limitations imposed by the conventional
attendance recording system, we propose a solution in the
form of an attendance tracking system based on RFID
technology. The main idea behind the system is to capture
student attendance in a semi-automated way where the
students are required to flash their student card at the RFID
reader upon entering the classroom. This way, the student ID
is instantly captured by the reader, after which the data is sent
to the online server for recording purpose [3]. Such system
promotes a more organized and systematic student attendance
recording. Having the attendance data instantly uploaded to the
online server prevents data loss, while allowing the data to be
available and accessible to the lecturers or other academic
staffs as long as they are connected to the internet [4]. The
system also helps to automatically compute the percentage of
attendance for each individual student. One related project was
referred [5], where an attendance system using the RFID
technology was developed in the university environment. This
work was taken as guidance in developing our web-based
student attendance system by using the RFID technology.

II. SYSTEM DESIGN
The web-based student attendance system using Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) technology promotes semi-
automated 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 [6-7]. Some comparisons performed on
the different technologies being used in the similar systems
were also learnt [8]. Related 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 [9-13].
Our proposed system consists of three main modules
namely the RFID reader module, Data Reporter module and
Web server module. Those modules are integrated together in
order to allow its full functionality. Each module carries its
own functions and special features. The general process flow
is illustrated in Figure 1, where all of these components are
involved and operational.






















Figure 1: The overall student attendance recording process













Figure 2: System Architecture of the web-based student attendance
system using RFID
The overall architecture of the system is illustrated in
Figure 2, where the three main components are shown. Each
of these components will be described in the following sub-
sections.

A. 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.
Active RFID reader can detect an active RFID tag while passive
RFID reader can only detect passive RFID tag at a few
centimeters away from the reader. The RFID reader being used in
the system is a low cost reader for reading passive RFID tags. It
operates at 0~ 400C temperatures, 20~80% of humidity, 125 kHz
frequency and 12V power supply [7]. The effective detection
range of the reader is around 5-8cm.
Each RFID tag has a unique serial number or ID. There are
three types of RFID tags which are active, semi-passive and
passive. The main difference between these RFID tags is that
active and semi-passive RFID tags require internal battery while
passive RFID tags do not use any internal battery. Adapted to our
scope of 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 [6]. When such
cards are passed through the field generated by a compatible
Reader, they transmit information back to the Reader [7]. Figure
3 illustrates how data transmission is performed between an RFID
reader and a student card.





AC900



RFID
Student

ID card










Figure 3: Data Transmission between an RFID reader and a student card

B. Data Reporter
Data Reporter is a component that fetches all logging data
from the RFID reader such as the captured student ID, time
and date for every 30 minutes interval. The collected data are
then passes to the online server, which will record the data into
the database. This component should always be kept up and
running and needs to be automatically restarted each time the
operating system reboots.

C. 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 users 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.

D. Data Collector
The role of the online data collector is to continually listen
to incoming data sent by the Data Reporter component. The
received log data will then be inserted to the database for
recording purpose.

E. Database
A database is defined as an organized collection of data
and tailored to our system, our database is employed to mainly
store the data captured by the RFID reader. Secondarily the
database is also used to store data gathered from the online
web-interface, such as class schedule and students personal
information. In offering more features to the users, our online-
system can manipulate the recorded student attendance record
by querying the database for complex data retrieval [14]. This
includes automated operation, such as summarizing an
individual student attendance by calculating the attendance
percentage for a particular course.

F. Graphical User Interface (GUI)
The GUI component of the system is purposely developed
for friendly interaction with the users. Both types of users,
namely the students and academic staffs are given unique





access to their individual member area, where the students can
access their personal information, while the academic staffs
can monitor their students information. The developed GUI is
in the form of dynamic web pages, which are database driven.
This signifies that the information displayed on the web pages
are constructed based on the data extracted from the database.
The web pages are categorized into four modules, namely the
User List, Log, Timetable and Attendance. The pages are
developed using the Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) scripting
language and compatible with all major web browsers [15].

III. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
Based on the system design presented earlier, the system
implementation was carried out. The overall process flow of
system implementation is illustrated in Figure 4, which
composed of 5 main steps. The deployment of networked
RFID readers is also illustrated in Figure 5.



























Figure 4: Overall process flow in developing the Web Based
Student's Attendance System

A. RFID System Device
The system employs RFID-Mifare terminals as the readers,
which can be installed across all classrooms or laboratories,
each denoting a specific venue [15-16]. These readers are
connected to a hub or a switch through RJ45 port or also
known as LAN port. In this setting, the hub or switch is linked
to a router for internet access, which is required in order to
connect the RFID readers to the Data Reporter component via
TCP/IP protocol.
















Figure 5: Network connection multiple RFID Reader to Web Based
Attendance System server

B. Web Development
The web application was initially developed on a local host
that runs the XAMPP server. Having such web server hosted
on the local host allows the PHP scripts to be developed and
locally tested and debugged. Besides the web server, a
database server is also run on the local host allowing the
scripts connectivity with the database. The database design
will be briefly described next.

C. MySQL Database
The web -based Student Attendance system is connected
directly to a MySQL database. In general, there are four main
tables created to store the collected data. A table called the
Log table is used to store all users logging data that include
the check-in date and time, paired with the student ID. These
data are initially captured by the Data Reporter component
from the RFID reader, which are then submitted to the Data
Collector, which is responsible in storing the data onto the
database. The User table is another table in the database that is
used to record the students details that include their profile
information such as name, address, email, phone number and
etc. Courses information such as the course code, scheduled
class venue, start and end time class are loaded into the
Timetable table. Meanwhile the analyzed students attendance
information is recorded in the Attendance database. A set of
pre-defined SQL queries are written into common functions
allowing easy data insertions, update and retrievals for web-
page displaying purpose.

D. Web Graphical User Interface (GUI) Design
A user is allowed to enter the member area by logging in to
the system via a login form. This type of authentication is
important in order to prevent access by unauthorized users.
The system grants access to 3 different types of users namely
the Administrator, Lecturer and Student. According to the user
type, each user is given the specific level of access. For
instance, the Administrator level is given an access not only to
view but to moderate and modify data in the system. In
contrast, other user levels will be given only limited access to
the system.
For easy reference, the GUI is designed with the horizontal
style for navigation menu. For administrators, a navigation




menu is given that provides links to the four main
functionalities of the system. These include the User List
function for adding and removing the students personal
details. Log function is provided for the purpose of
monitoring the students check-in details. The Timetable
function is used to manage the classes schedule, while the
Attendance function is to monitor the students attendance.
Figure 6 shows the navigation-menu design of the system.



















Figure 6: GUI navigation menu

IV. SYSTEM TESTING AND RESULT
To ensure the system correctness and completeness, system
testing has been performed across the system environment that
includes the client-side application, server-side application and
the hardware.

A. Hardware and Application Integration Testing
RFID Reader was tested by having it to capture the ID and
current timestamp for several RFID student cards in order to
ensure the device is not malfunction and operates as desired.
Firstly, a new student card is flashed to the RFID Reader to
capture and recognize the cards unique ID. The captured ID is
then used to register the mapped student ID into the system.
Once registered, the student card can then be used by flashing
it to the RFID Reader to record the student attendance. For
this purpose, the log data, which include the current
timestamp, is also recorded.
The next step was to set up the Data Reporter component so
that it is able to fetch log data from RFID Reader and pass it to
Data Collector. Both Data Reporter component and the log
table (in the database) are then monitored for new log data
specifically to detect whether Data Reporter has successfully
fetched and passed the log data to Data Collector, which will
store the data into the log table. If no new log data was
recorded, Data Reporter and Data Collector components
would be debugged and reconfigured until they successful
perform the required function. Figure 7 illustrates the process
flow of the hardware and application testing.

















Figure 7: The hardware and application testing process flow






















Figure 8: The online system testing process flow

B. Online System
Unit testing for each online component was performed by
monitoring the outputs they produced through a web browser.
Such testing was done while coding each of the defined
component. In detailed, after coding a particular function of a
particular online component in PHP, the result or output is
observed through the web browser. If there was no display or
an error was displayed, the recently coded function will be
debugged through a PHP editor. The similar test was
performed to validate SQL queries performed onto the
database. If an SQL query was found to return a wrong result,
then the query would be debugged to attain the desired result.





Once all online pages are correctly displayed, an integrated
system testing would be performed between the RFID reader
and the online system together to complete the overall system
testing. Figure 8 illustrates the process flow of the online
system testing.

C. System Testing Results
In general, our aim to develop a prototype of a Web Based
Student Attendance System was successful. The user-login
authentication process was successfully tested, which prevents
an unauthorized access into the system. Once a user is
successfully logged in, the user is given the access to the main
page that displays a menu listing a set of features offered to
the user. Figure 9 illustrates the Web Based Student
Attendance System login interface.
Figure 10 shows the system Web Based Student Attendance
System Users List page, viewable only by the system
administrator. On this Users List page, all users details are
displayed. In addition the administrator may choose to display a
list of users according to their role, namely administrator, lecturer
or student role. From the displayed list, the administrator is
allowed to add new users or to delete existing users by clicking
the delete or add user button. Figure 11 shows a page displaying
the students detailed information. This page is called the Student
Attendance System User details page. For the similar feature, an
administrator may view details of all users, while a lecturer may
only view details of users identified as student. A particular
student may only view details of their own account. On such
page, an administrator can edit details of any user and a lecturer
may edit details of a student but a student is not allowed to do any
modification to their data.












Figure 9: Web-Based Student Attendance System login menu











Figure 10: Attendance List menu

V. CONCLUSION
The developed Web-Based Student Attendance System
using Radio Frequency Identification technology will

significantly improve the current manual process of student
attendance recording and tracking system, especially in a
university or school environment. The system promotes a
semi-automated approach in capturing the student attendance,
i.e. by having the students to flash their student cards to the
RFID reader.













Figure 11: Web Based Student Attendance System User details page
In addition, a number of other advantages are gained by
having an online web-based system, acting as a central
repository of student attendance record. Firstly all processes of
managing the student attendance record are performed online,
allowing administrators and lecturers to view or modify the
users data through any computer via the web browser, as long
as they are connected to the Internet. This way, no specific
software installation is required. The captured student
attendance data are also processed and analyze automatically
with less risk of data loss, compared to a manual filing
approach. Specific to lecturers or teachers, they can easily
monitor their students attendance online and this could
improve the quality of teaching since less time is needed to
manage the student attendance record. The developed system
can be improved and upgraded further, e.g. by extending the
system with new features and modules or by improving the
web-interface layout with new display style. Better yet the
system can be enhanced further to offer another significant
enhancement where the system can be extended to monitor
staff attendance record.

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