RFID based attendance system

Most educational institutions' administrators are concerned about student irregular attendance. Truancies can affect student overall academic performance. The conventional method of taking attendance by calling names or signing on paper is very time consuming and insecure, hence inefficient. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based attendance system is one of the solutions to address this problem. This system can be used to take attendance for student in school, college, and university. It also 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 make the process of taking the attendance easier, faster and secure as compared to conventional method. Students or workers only need to place their ID card on the reader and their attendance will be taken immediately. With real time clock capability of the system, attendance taken will be more accurate since the time for the attendance taken will be recorded. The system can be connected to the computer through RS232 or Universal Serial Bus (USB) port and store the attendance taken inside database. An alternative way of viewing the recorded attendance is by using HyperTerminal software. A prototype of the system has been successfully fabricated.