Bus Detection Device for the Blind Using RFID

Application
Mohd Zikrul Hakim Noor, Ismarani Ismail and Mohammad Farid Saaid
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40 450Shah Alam
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Abstract- This paper outlines a bus detection mechanism for
the blind in travelling from one place to another. In order to get
transportation independently, the blind use auditory touched
clues like walking stick or white cane. The limitation of the
walking stick is that a blind person must come into close
proximity with their surroundings to determine the location of
an obstacle. For that basis, various devices have been developed
such as the Sonicguide, the Mowat sensor, the Laser cane and
the Navbelt [4]. However, these device can only assist the blind
at a pedestrian crossing. Therefore, the project is aims to
develop a bus detection prototype using Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) for the blind. The paper covers brief idea
about the blind and RFID system, review relevant papers and
summary of current research. The review of RFID system
compare between families of auto-ID technology, the basic
principle of RFID, the type of RFID tagging and the antenna
characteristic. The summary of current research discussed
about the development of prototype, the database system, the
output mechanism and integration between hardware and
software. Database management will provided. The information
such as bus route, final destination and bus number are also
provided. This paper also describes the future work intended to
be done.
I. INTRODUCTION
Blind Problem
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due
to physiological or neurological factors. In general, blind
person has difficulty to sense what happen around them since
they cannot see and only depends on their own intuition.
There is lots of reason that caused blindness such as
congenital conditions, ageing, accidents and conditions related
to disease or infections. Furthermore, as the population ages,
the number of individuals who are blind or have low vision
would likely increased. Currently, statistic showed that more
than 37 million blind people around the world need help to
live normal in their daily activities [1]. Basic actions such as
buying something at grocery store or taking the bus are among
the challenges that blind people face every day.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Auto-ID technologies are referred to the technology that
enables identifying items and collection of data related to the
items without human intervention. An Auto-ID technology
usually comprises of Bar Code Systems, Biometric Systems,
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) Systems. Within this family, the Bar
Code System is the most comparable to RFID in many
application areas. Both are designed to be a wireless
detectable and both used tag or label that must be read by
computer systems [6]. The comparison between Bar Code
System and RFID Systems are summarise in table 1 below.
TABLE 1
THE DIFFERENT BETWEEN BAR CODE SYSTEM AND RFID
TECHNOLOGY [8]
No Bar Code Systems RFID System
1) Required line of sight to be
read.
Can be read from a distance.
2) Every can of Coke has the
same UPC (Bar code
number) as every other cans.
Each individual of Coke
would have a unique ID
number which could be
linked to the person buying
it.
3) Not affected human health. Could be bad for human
health due to continually
bombard with
electromagnetic energy.
Based on the information from the table, bar codes are
inexpensive and effective for certain tasks. Most likely RFID
and bar codes will coexist for many years. But RFID usage
application is growing and had forever its important lately.
RFID represents an unusual business opportunity and it is a
chance to take operational efficiency to a whole new level [7].
RFID is a technology that use wireless radio frequency
transmission to identify the specific object, item or person. An
RFID System consists of four basic components;
1) Reader (also called interrogator) comprising of antenna,
transreceiver and decoder.
2) RFID tag (also called transponder) which consists of an
integrated circuit (IC), and small antenna.
3) Middleware (also called host).
4) Database for storing product information.
247
2009 5th International Colloquium on Signal Processing & Its Applications (CSPA)
978-1-4244-4152-5/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE
Fig. 1. Principles of operation of RFID system

Figure 1 above shows the principles of operation of RFID
Systems. A Reader functions as a data capture device which
interrogates the tag and retrieve the data from all tags in the
receiving area. The area of detection depends on the antenna
used. The detected tags give a response back to the reader.
The information is getting from unique Electronic Product
Code (EPC) Code as programmed in the tag. Then, the reader
sends the data to the host. At host the appropriate software are
used to support reader in order to extract unique information
from the read data and communicate with external databases.
RFID tags come in three general varieties namely passive,
active, or semi-passive (also known as battery-assisted).
Passive tags require no internal power source, thus being pure
passive devices (only active when a reader is nearby to power
them), whereas semi-passive and active tags require a power
source, usually a small battery [8]. The different between
Semi-passive and active tags is Semi-passive required a
battery but not used to enhance reading range. The battery is
used to power sensors or volatile memory read range depends
on the frequency and type of tags. Table 2 below shows
summarize of comparisons between RFID tagging;
TABLE 2
RFID TAG ATTRIBUTES
Characteristic Passive RFID Tags Active RFID Tags
Power Source
(Baterry)
No internal power
(Energy Transferred
from the reader)
Internal to the tags
Cost Less expensive More expensive
Size Tag is physically
smaller
Tag is much larger
Coverage Area Short distances (Up to
7m, normally less)
Long distance (Up to
100m)
Availability of
tags
Unlimited operational
lifetime
Limited operational
lifetime
Capacity of
memory
Limited memory (Up to
16 Kbits)
More large memory
(128Kb or more)
Availability of
enhancement
No enhancement
applied
Contain sensors, GPS,
satellite links or others
Another important component of RFID is antenna.
Antenna can be divided into 4 major frequency ranges: Low-
frequency (LF), High frequency (HF), Ultra-high frequency
(UHF) and Microwave. Table 3 below shows summarizes of
different frequency ranges;
TABLE 3
RFID FREQUENCY CHARACTERISTIC
Frequency LF HF UHF Microwave
Range (Hz) 9 -125K 13.56M 300-
1200M
2.45 or
5.8G
Read
Range
<0.5
meters
1 meters 100
meters
10 meters
Power
Source
Passive
tags
Passive
tags
Both tags Both tags
Current
Application
Access
control and
animal
tracking
Item level
tracking
and smart
cards
Baggage
handling
Asset
tracking
and toll
collection
General Largest
current
install base
Wide
acceptance
due to
smart card
adoption
Not
allowed in
Japan
Energy
Efficiency
Higher Lower
II. RFID APPLICATIONS FOR THE BLIND
According to Patrick E. Lanigan who developed the
assistive technology for the blind[1], independence in ones
daily activities is the topmost priority for the blind. The
project which called as Trinetra was to assist the blind with
the task of grocery shopping. There are many kinds of food
that can be identified by touch, such as fruits and vegetables.
However can food such as cans of soup, sardines, cans of
drink, etc. may be hard to identify [1]. By using Trinetra
application, drawbacks have been solved. Besides that, in
order to help the blind to get transportation and travel
independently, the blind use auditory touched clues and other
information based on natural sense like sound and smell.
Presently, the most common method of range detection used
by blind people is the walking stick or white cane. The
limitation of the walking stick is that a blind person must
come into close proximity with their surroundings to
determine the location of an obstacle [3]. For that basis,
various devices have been developed such as the Sonicguide,
the Mowat sensor, the Laser cane and the Navbelt [4].
However, these devices only assist the blind at a pedestrian
crossing. Therefore, the project aims in designing and
developing the travel aid on bus detection for the blind using
RFID application.
III. BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH
This research is aim to develop blind mobility device
which is able to solve the problem that blind people faces
every day. The device functions as guidance for the blind
people to move from one place to another especially when
using public transport. For this project, the prototype is made
for detection bus using Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID).
In order to get busses at the bus stop, blind people will
depend on RFID reader. Basically, the reader which is attach
to computer and antenna will functions as a sensor to identify
bus. In the other hand, the reader will detect RFID tag which
248
is placed in the bus. Then, the acquire information will be sent
to the blind using output mechanism such as audio system.
Information such as bus route, final destination and bus
number will be stored in database. Figure 2 below shows a
conceptual design related to this project;
Fig. 2. Conceptual Design
IV. PROJECT PLAN
A. RFID Characteristic Test
From the work done by the final year project (EE 690) in
Faculty of Electrical Engineering students utilizing High
Frequency (HF) tag and antenna, there are several tests that
could be adopted in this project. The project is planned using
Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) tag and antenna since the
application needs to have a detection range of 1 to 3 meters.
The work plan will undertake the following characteristic;
1) Polarization (Antenna Characteristic Test)
Polarization is very important to the RFID implementer.
The best power transfer between two antennas takes place
when their polarizations are aligned. There are different types
of antenna design such as linear-polarized antennas and
circular-polarized antennas [12]. For this project, the UHF
antenna is going to determine the type of polarized antennas.
2) Tag Performance (Tag Characteristic Test)
From the book RFID Implementation, tag performance is
referred to how far from the reader the tag can be read [12].
However several other performance factors need to be
considered. The appropriate tests are going to undertake to
determine the performance of the tag.
B. Database Development
Database system is the part to produce the system
requirement and objective of the project. The database
consists of the RFID number, bus route, origin and
destination. The information of route, origin and destination of
the bus are taken from Rangkaian Pengangkutan Integrasi
Deras Sdn. Bhd. (RapidKL) and by own observation of the
bus. The detail description is given below;
1) RFID_Number
RFID_Number is a Manufacturing number of the RFID tag.
2) Route
Route is the bus number taken from origin to the destination.
3) Origin
Origin is the place where the bus starts the journey.
4) Destination
Destination is the place where the bus will go before going
back to origin and start another journey.
V. CONCLUSION
The project is planned to develop a bus detection prototype
using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for the blind.
Currently, there are lots of project using RFID has been
developed, however the research focusing on disable people
like the blind is limited. The RFID characteristic test is still at
the early stage, many works are still on going. The software
for the communication links and database structure is at a
development stage. Hopefully the project will help blind
people to be exposed to the technology that make them
become more independent and for Muslim, this is another
alternative approach for using dog. Finally, RFID technology
is very interesting area and can be widely expand in the future.
REFERENCES
[1] Patrick E. Lanigan, Aaron M. Paulos, Andrew W. Williams, Priya
Narasimhan, Trinetra: Assistive Technologies for the Blind,
Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213, May 1, 2006.
[2] Sandip Lahiri, RFID Sourcebook, 2006
[3] David T. Batarseh, Dr. Timothy N. Burcham, and Dr. Gary M.
McFadyen,An Ultrasonic Ranging System for the Blind,
Agricultural and Biological Engineering Mississippi State University,
1997IEEE.
[4] Mohammad Shorif Uddin and Tadayoshi Shioyama, Measurement
of the Length of Pedestrian Crossings A Navigational Aid for Blind
People, Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference, Oct 36,
2004
[5] Ersin BAL, An Rfid Application for The Disabled: Path Finder,
Petrol Ofisi A.S.
[6] Norlida Buniyamin, Ismarani Ismail and Zainuddin Mohamad,
RFID Tagging In Monitoring and Control Of Oil Palm Breeding and
Traceability Of Seeds, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam,
Malaysia, 2005
[7] Why RFID
[ http://www.databrokers.net/body_why_rfid.html ]
[8] RFID Nineteen Eighty-four, Spychips.com
[ http://www.spychips.com/what-is-rfid.html ]
[9] A RFID Device to Improve Shelf Replenishment Efficiency, Jos
Wagner de O., Bezerra Edmilson, C. Moreira Marcelo F. de Sousa,
Instituto Atlntico (IA), CEP 60822-780 - Fortaleza - CE Brazil
[10] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 26 April 2008
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID ]
[11] The RF in RFID, Danial M. Dobkin, 2007
[12] RFID Implementation, Dennis E. Brown, 2007
249