Mobile RFID Reader

Welcome to the documentation for the Mobile RFID Reader. This documentation is divided into two main sub-sections, namely Drone-Inventory App and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Setup/Configuration.

This projects situates itself as a high-level "proof-of-concept." The ultimate goal of this project is to show that scanning RFID-enabled inventory from a UAV is feasible and can provide tremendous performance benefits for both inventory managers as well as in-field workers.

The project utilizes a Bebop 2 drone as the base and utilizes an RFID scanner to detect RFID-enabled inventory (see the "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Setup/Configuration" for additional details). All data is made accessible to users via the web-based, Drone-Inventory App. Viewing scanned inventory as well as inventory management can all be performed using the Drone-Inventory App.

(Note: This documentation was formatted with Markdown and therefore a Markdown reader is recommended!)

Authors:

Jason Elting, Jameson Morgan, Zia Anwar and Kiran Wani

GitHub:

https://github.com/morgan219/wsu-team-projects (restricted)

License:

The MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

References/Sources:

ARDroneSDK3: http://developer.parrot.com/docs/bebop/

Bebop Samples: https://github.com/Parrot-Developers/Samples

Mercury API: http://www.thingmagic.com/mercuryapi

Mercury API Python Wrapper: https://github.com/gotthardp/python-mercuryapi

http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/0.12/tutorial/

https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world

https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/2633201/camera_drone_helicopter_spy_technology_icon#size=256

http://flask.pocoo.org/snippets/8/

Notice:

This project was developed for Team Projects I & II (CEG 4980/4981 or EE 4910/4920) at Wright State University (WSU) during the Fall 2017 and Spring 2018 semesters. All aspects of this project remain the intellectual property of Wright State University and this project's authors (named above).

Drone-Inventory App

The Drone-Inventory App is the graphical user interface (GUI) for the Mobile RFID Reader project. The application operates on port 8000 and is accessible when on the WSU-Secure network through the following URL or IP:

URL: http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory
IP: 130.108.78.45:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory

The application is password protected and uses the HTTPAuth login process. Only users with valid username/password combinations are allowed to access the Drone-Inventory App. NOTE: The drone utilizes a special username/password combination for accessing the application.

Returned Inventory Display (Default Screen):

By default, the returned inventory database is deleted after an application refresh. In addition, a user can utilize the "Clear Returned Inventory" button to simply clear all entries returned. This will not delete the items from the inventory database but simply "clears" the returned inventory screen. All items scanned by the mobile RFID reader will appear on this page. Additionally, this returned list of inventory is searchable by tag id.

Flight Plan:

Not implemented in GUI due to time constraints. All flight plan configuration takes place within a linux-based machine using the Parrot ARDrone3 SDK. Future work would focus on providing an easy-to-use GUI-based flight plan manager.

[INSERT FLIGHT PLAN CONFIG INSTRUCTIONS]

Database Configuration:

Central management location for the main database of inventory items. This page allows creation, delation, searching and updating of RFID inventory. Additionally, a current list of inventory items is displayed on the right side. Finally, at the bottom-left one can backup the database using the convienent "Backup Database" link. For advanced users, we provide the format for each inventory item.

id, unique-autoincrementer, primary key, integer
title, title of inventory item, string type and not null
tag, tag number of inventory item, string type and not null
location, location information for inventory item, text type and not null

About:

About page for the project.

API:

The application is based upon a REST API with data being passed in via HTTP GET and POST requests. Data is passed in using using the HTTP form format (application/x-www-urlencoded) and is retrieved using request.form['element_index'] from within the Flask application.

+___________________________________________________________________________________+________+____________________________________________________________________________________________+
| URL                                                                               | TYPE   | Parameters                       | Result                                                  |
+===================================================================================+========+==================================+=========================================================+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/flight                               | GET    | None                             | Shows flight control page                               | 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/about                                | GET    | None                             | Shows about page for project                            |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory                            | GET    | None                             | Shows the inventory returned page                       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory                            | POST   | None                             | Posts inventory (tag, name, location) to main database  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/database                             | GET    | None                             | Shows the database management page                      |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/get                        | POST   | tag (type:text)                  | Retrieves specific item (by tag) from inventory returned|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/database/get                         | POST   | tag (type:text)                  | Retrieves specific item (by tag) from main database     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/posttag                    | POST   | tag (type:text)                  | Posts inventory (tag, name, location) to returned       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/update                     | POST   | title, tag, location (types:text)| Updates inventory (tag, name, location) in main database|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/delete                     | POST   | tag (type:text)                  | Deletes inventory (tag, name, location) in main database|
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/delete_returned_inventory  | POST   | None                             | Clears inventory (tag, name, location) from returned    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/getDatabase                | GET    | None                             | Returns the main database for backup purposes           |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------+----------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
| http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/keepAlive (NOT IMPLEMENTED!)         | GET    | None                             | Keep alive used for checking communication with Pi      |
+___________________________________________________________________________________+________+__________________________________+_________________________________________________________+

Sample API Calls (using curl):

Only items which exist in the main database will be displayed. In other words, if a scanned tag does not exist within the main database, it will not be displayed to the user. The UAV scanning application should utilize an HTTP POST request in order to pass this information to the application. An example 'curl' call is included below for reference.

Display Scanned Item
curl -u <username>:<password> -d "tag=<tag_number>" -X POST http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory/posttag

Create Inventory Item
curl -u <username>:<password> -d "tag=<tag_number>&title=<title>&location=<location>" -X POST http://team21.cs.wright.edu:8000/rfid/api/v1/inventory

API NOTES:

Only unique tags are accepted during creation. If a user inputs a tag which already exists within the main database, a friendly error message will result.
The .../posttag url should be used for displaying the current scanned inventory, however, please note that it simply checks for a valid entry in the main database and displays it. Therefore, in order to properly update the location please call .../update url with the updated location prior to calling the .../posttag url. This will ensure that the displayed tag utilizes the most recent location.
Updating the inventory can take up to three parameters, namely the title tag and location. If the title is left out, it simply updates the the location.

RFID Reader:

The reader used for this project is the sparkfun M6E Nano. This reader is based upon one of th ThingMagic RFID readers and therefore can utilize the ThingMagic Python Wrapper Library (https://github.com/gotthardp/python-mercuryapi). We utilized this library for our project. To install the ThingMagic Python Wrapper Library, simply follow the installation instructions located on its GitHub page.

Scanning RFID Tags:

The scanning of RFID tags occurs through the scan_rfid.py file. The following settings are configurable and are modified in-code:

reader: specifies the connection to the reader (see scan_rfid.py for example)
runtime: specifies how long to scan for tags, by default 10 seconds
region: specifies the geographical region, by default NA2
protocol: specifies the rfid type, by default GEN2 for EPC Gen. 2
power: specifies power in centi-decibles, by default 1900
credentials: specifies the login credentials to the Drone-Inventory App, format: username:password
posturl: specifies the URL that should be used to POST tags to
antenna: specifies which antenna to use, defaults to 1

Running `scan_rfid.py` on Raspberry Pi

Start a python3 shell
Import script using import scan_rfid.py You may stop the program at any time using the common ctrl+c command if the program is ran in the Python shell.

WiFi Quick Configuration:

We have provided a script to enable quick and efficient auto-connection to the required networks. This script was added to the ./bashrc file on the Raspberry Pi Zero W. The script is detailed in the config_wifi.sh file.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Setup/Configuration

Below, we discuss the drone configuration and setup used for our project.

Current Hardware:

Our design currently makes use of the following:

M6E Nano Simultaneous RFID Reader
Raspberry Pi Zero W
1000C PowerBoost Circuit
FTDI - to - USB Breakout Board
18650 35A, 3000mAh
3-Port USB Hub
802.11n WiFi Adapter
5dB PCB Antenna
U.fl to MMCX
2 18650 Battery Clips
1 JST connector
1 USB to USB-Micro B
1 USB to USB-Mini B
1 USB to USB-Micro B insert
A collection of breadboard jumpers

Hardware Configuration:

Initial Setup: We placed all components on a blank PCB board and utilized 3M Command Strips for attachement. This was done for convience as it allowed us to quickly remove components as necessary for design and testing. We conn

Connecting the RFID Reader, power circuit and Pi: We attached the M6E Nano RFID reader, the 1000C PowerBoost and the Raspberry Pi Zero W (in case) to the PCB. We then connected the jumpers from the FTDI breakout board to the appropriate pins on the M6E Nano, namely NC, TX0, RX1, VCC, NC and GND. Please note, that the if one simply connects the pins in order starting from the green side (labeled) of the FTDI board to the corresponding pins on the M6E nano when starting at the green side (labeled), the device will function properly. Nevertheless, a mapping is detailed below:

FTDI | to | M6E
DTR  | -> | NC
RX   | -> | TX0
TX   | -> | RX1
+    | -> | VCC
CTS  | -> | NC
GND  | -> | GND

Power Configuration: Next, we placed the 18650 battery clips on a piece of 3M Command Strip so that the length was equal to that of the 18650 battery and soldered the wire-side of the JST jumper to the appropriate ends of the battery clips. We then attached this to the top of the Raspberry Pi Zero W case and covered the Pi's header with electrical tape to prevent acidental shorts. Next, we placed the JST connection into the JST input/output on the 1000C PowerBoost. To power the M6E nano we took the 5V and GND output of the 1000C PowerBoost and connected it to the +5V and GND pins on the M6E Nano.

USB Hub: Lastly, we connected the USB hub to the Pi and used the USB to Micro-B insert to bridge the connection. To the hub, we attached the USB to Mini-B cable and attached the other end to the FTDI breakout board. We also attached the 802.11n WiFi dongle to the hub. Finally, we took the USB to Micro-B and attached it to the USB output on the 1000C PowerBoost and the Micro-B side to the power input of the Pi.

JasonElting / wsu-team-projects

Mobile RFID Reader

Authors:

GitHub:

License:

References/Sources:

Notice:

Drone-Inventory App

Returned Inventory Display (Default Screen):

Flight Plan:

Database Configuration:

About:

API:

Sample API Calls (using curl):

API NOTES:

RFID Reader:

Scanning RFID Tags:

Running `scan_rfid.py` on Raspberry Pi

WiFi Quick Configuration:

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Setup/Configuration

Current Hardware:

Hardware Configuration:

Current Images of UAV

About

Languages

Mobile RFID Reader

Authors:

GitHub:

License:

References/Sources:

Notice:

Drone-Inventory App

Returned Inventory Display (Default Screen):

Flight Plan:

Database Configuration:

About:

API:

Sample API Calls (using curl):

API NOTES:

RFID Reader:

Scanning RFID Tags:

Running scan_rfid.py on Raspberry Pi

WiFi Quick Configuration:

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Setup/Configuration

Current Hardware:

Hardware Configuration:

Current Images of UAV

About

Languages

Running `scan_rfid.py` on Raspberry Pi