CHAPTER THREE

MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY

Overview

In an effort to improve maintenance management system, researchers worked on improvement

from different perspectives. Some systems are computer-based which may be online or offline
system. For instance, a desktop application in which all the list of items due for maintenance
will be displayed when the engineers start up the application. The maintenance is done by
selecting an item the engineer will work up and then click on repair.

The project above offers serious time wastage but it is an improvement from the manual
process. I developed a maintenance management system using Android, NFC and MySQL. My
system is a web based that used card technology for engineer’s identification and availability
and equipment’s status. This system presents a commercial system based on NFC for
maintenance management in factories. The system can send SMS to engineers based on
availability of engineers, due periodic maintenance and system breakdown.

The NFC-based applications simplify various human day-to-day activities by simply touching
an object fixed or integrated with NFC tag. For instance, Smart Touch is one of the early NFC
projects that focuses on NFC technology coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre
Finland; applications in various areas were developed under this project such as mobile
payment and ticketing, smart poster, attendance system for schools, home use, blood glucose
meter, etc. The hardware used in the project includes NFC-based devices (Samsung NFC-
enabled phones, Sony NFC-enabled phones), NFC-enabled Passive devices (Touchatag,
Topaz), NFC readers (ACS-ACR-122U) and NFC Server Hosts which handle communication
with the readers.

Product Features

i. RFID Based Maintenance Technology: - This maintenance system uses Radio

Frequency Identification (RFID) technique, which is a wireless non-contact technique,
 which uses radio frequency electromagnetic field to transfer data, for the purpose of
automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects.

ii. NFC Based System: - This system is based on Near Field Communication system
which is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio
communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into
proximity, usually no more than a few centimeters. NFC is based on Radio frequency
Identification (RFID) technique.

iii. Smart ID: This software requires a smart id i.e. NFC Tag, NFC Smart Card to register
an engineer.

User Classes and Characteristics

i. Admin Engineer: Factory Management is the super most user of this system. The
authorized person from the management can edit the details of any equipment and
engineer.
ii. Engineer: Factory Personnel responsible for carrying out maintenance and also
checking equipment status and maintenance schedule.
iii. Equipment: Items in the factory that needs to be maintained.

Operating Environment

Hardware Requirements

Hardware Reason

NFC Android Phone/Android NFC Scanner To scan id and register one’s maintenance
NFC Tag/NFC Smart Card Smart ID related to only one & required to

make maintenance
Table 3.1: Hardware Requirements
Software Requirements

Software Version Reason

Android OS 16(JellyBean) Minimum required version

IntelliJ Idea IDE 13.0.2 To code for project
ArgoUML .34 To make UML diagrams
Table 3.2: Software Requirements

Server Side

 Web Server: Apache 2

 Database Server: MySQL
 Operating System: Linux
 Version: Ubuntu 12
 Processor: Dual Core 2.6GHz
 1GB RAM

Client Side

 A reliable network connection

 Operating System: Android 4.1 and above

Design and Implementation Constraints

This system is designed for Android based NFC devices

 In this system, the major constraint is that it is very necessary that the NFC-scanner
must be an android device. Device must be connected so that database can be updated.
 The second constraint is that every machine and engineer must have an NFC tag.
External Interface Requirements

User Interface

In this maintenance management system, only engineers can interact with the system.
Equipment can’t interact with the system.

Admin Engineer Interface

Hardware Interfaces

NFC tags are designed just like an RFID tag to be used at 13.56 MHz and therefore the tag
design is similar. At this frequency range, RFID tags mostly use the theory of Strongly Coupled
Magnetic Resonance. This is basically where two nearby loop antennae provide strong
electromagnetic mutual induction resonance. This effect is also known as inductive coupling.
During operation, other communication frequencies are disabled which allows very fast
communication between coupled resonances. Please note that this phenomenon is valid only
for loop antennae that are placed very near to each other.

In this type of system, the antennae can be represented by inductors where for a passive device
the energy is provided by the magnetic field of the reader. From EM and transformers, we know
that two coupled coils can be replaced by an equivalent.
 Figure 3.1: Antenna circuit and its equivalent

Figure 3.2: A full NFC/RFID system at 13.56 MHz

Software Interfaces

In this project, the following software has been used during development:
 i. AndroidOS: This system is basically developed for android devices because
nowadays android phone is easily available to everyone. For this project, we have
taken Android version 4.2 JellyBean APK version 16 as minimum required version
ii. IntelliJIdea IDE: In this project we have used IntelliJIdea Integrated development
Environment to code the project.
iii. ArgoUML: To make UML diagrams, we have used ArgoUML tool.
iv. Database: We have used MySQL as database for our project to store all records
related to equipment status, engineers, etc.

Communication Interface

NFC can be considered a special case of RFID. It operates at a frequency of 13.56 MHz, which
is one of the unlicensed frequencies. Unlicensed frequencies are commonly used in medical
application or industrial applications concerned with personal devices such as Bluetooth,
wireless devices and micro-wave ovens (2.45 GHz). The allocated Bandwidth in the 13.56 MHz
band is 14 kHz so the communication has to be in the range 13.553 - 13.567 MHz. However,
in NFC the envelope of the spectrum may spread up to 1.8 MHz using ASK modulation.

In NFC, there are two communication modes and three supported data rates and
coding/modulation schemes used. In passive mode, the initiator sends an RF signal and the
target device uses the power generated by the propagated EM field. On the other hand, in active
mode, both devices have their own power supply and use it to alternately generate their own
RF field for communication. The three supported data rates are 106, 212 and 424 Kbit/s
(maximum) which is much lower to the Bluetooth V2.1 data rate of 2.1 Mbit/s. Almost all
configurations use Manchester with 10% ASK except for active devices operating at 106 Kbit/s.
Software Quality Attributes

This Maintenance Management System is very flexible. The basic quality of this system are as
follows:

 Adaptability: This system is a new way of making day to day maintenance in which no
pen and paper work is required and fast also which saves time as well. So, this system
is adaptable in various factories, institutions, etc.
 Availability: As the system is low cost and in today’s time android is such operating
system which is easily available. So, this system is also easily available for those who
want to adapt this system.
 Correctness: Since this maintenance system is based on NFC technology and to make
maintenance it is very necessary to touch one’s NFC Tag or NFC Mobile. So we can
say that this system is very correct as compared to other maintenance systems because
everyone has an unique id.
 Flexibility: As the NFC technology is a part of most of the mobile operating systems so
this system can be made for different operating systems. So it can be said that it is
flexible.
 Maintainability: This system requires very less maintenance. In this system operations
can be done using NFC enabled android mobile phones/tablets so there is no
requirement of too much maintenance.
 Reliability: This maintenance system is reliable because it gives the correct information
about maintenances of every equipment and as each equipment has a unique id so there
is no worry of fake proxy.
 Reusability: In this system each equipment is given with a NFC tag and when the
equipment breaks down completely at that time that NFC tag can be allocated for a new
equipment that is brought in to the factory. So we can say that it is reusable.
Design Methodology

The Engineer will be equipped with an NFC enabled smartphone. The mobile application
development will be done using the Google Android platform. Google is a major backer of Near
Field Communication technology and as such has provided many flexible APIs (Application
Programming Interface) which will aid us in this. Google provides an Android Software
Development Kit which combined with the popular Java based eclipse IDE (Integrated
Development Environment) and the Android Development Tool (ADT) plugin will help us
greatly in the development of the software.

As mentioned earlier in the objective, the proposed NFC system would assist in smart
maintenance. The key to optimum factory output is full functionality of all equipment. This
system has the potential to replace all manual maintenance record in factories.

Architecture

Overview

Modules
Activity Diagram

Activity diagrams are graphical representations of workflows of stepwise activities and actions
with support for choice, iteration and concurrency. Activity diagrams show the overall flow of
control. Various activity diagrams for this system are as follows: