A Software Design Specification for “NFC Based Attendance System” in partial fulfillment for the award of the Degree of Bachelors of Technology in Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Submitted To:
Submitted By:
Mr. Mohit Khandelwal
Raunak Jain
Project In-charge
Shashank Mudgal
CS Department
Sudhir Kumar
IET Alwar
Department of Computer Science & Engineering Institute of Engineering and Technology Alwar October, 2014
Candidate’s Declaration
I hereby declare that the work, which is being presented in this report, entitled “NFC Based Attendance System” in partial fulfillment for the award of Degree of “Bachelor of Technology” in department of Computer Science & Engineering, Institute of Engineering and Technology, Alwar affiliated to, Rajasthan Technical University is a record of my own investigations carried under the Guidance of Mr. Nitin Sharma Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IET Alwar. I have not submitted the matter presented in this report any where for the award of any other Degree. Raunak Jain Shashank Mudgal Sudhir Kumar Computer Science & Engineering Counter Signed by
Mr. Nitin Sharma Lecturer CS Dept. IET
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Preface
Registering for attendance in education environments especially universities is a highly demanding activity as a result of increasing number of students. The attendance process normally involves circulating a paper for the students to register their names, or the lecturer calling the names and registering the students either in a paper or from PDA/PC. In the first case the student’s attention may be attracted while taking the lectures and at the same time they can register for students who do not being present in the class. While in the latter case the issue of cheating in the form of registering for their friends can be solved but imaging the number of students to be from 50 and above, a great portion of the lecture time will be wasted performing this process. In this software design specification document we propose a smart attendance system using NFC that will simplify the attendance process, by simply touching an attendance poster or the lecturer’s NFC based mobile devices in the class. This software design specification document encloses all the necessary information about the NFC based attendance system. In this document all requirements of project, qualities, dependencies, assumptions, advantages, disadvantages, UML diagrams, database table schema has been placed.
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Acknowledgement
It is a matter of great pleasure and privilege for us to present this software design specification on our minor project, “NFC Based Attendance System” that we had developed for fulfillment of our Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering. We have received enormous help, guidance and advice from many people and we feel that it will be not be right to mention a line about at least some of them. The author would like to express their utmost gratitude to the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Alwar for providing opportunity to author to pursue for the degree of Bachelor of Technology. We are grateful to our chairman Dr. V.K. Agarwal for providing me the opportunity to study in this institution as well as providing us with all the necessary facilities. Our principal Dr. Anil Kumar Sharma has been source of inspiration to us in our work sincerely. I am also thankful to Dr. Basant Kumar Verma (H.O.D., CSE) and Mr. Mohit Khandelwal (Project In-charge) for their encouragement and guidance. Their words of encouragement led us to finish our work successfully. I am also thankful to my project guide Mr. Nitin Sharma and also to all faculty members of Computer Science & Engineering and Information Technology Department and all other for help given to us directly or indirectly for the success of this project. Raunak Jain
Roll No. – 11EIACS085
Shashank Mudgal
Roll No. – 11EIACS097
Sudhir Kumar
Roll No. – 11EIACS105
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Table of Contents Candidate’s Declaration ................................................................................................................ i Preface ............................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... iv Table Of Figures ............................................................................................................................v List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ vi 1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................1 1.1 1.2
Background Study......................................................................................................................... 1 Project Scope ................................................................................................................................ 2
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6
Product Perspective ....................................................................................................................... 4 Product Features............................................................................................................................ 6 User Classes and Characteristics................................................................................................... 6 Operating Environment ................................................................................................................. 7 Design and Implementation Constraints ....................................................................................... 8 Assumptions and Dependencies.................................................................................................... 8
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4
User Interfaces ............................................................................................................................ 10 Hardware Interfaces .................................................................................................................... 11 Software Interfaces ..................................................................................................................... 13 Communications Interfaces ........................................................................................................ 14
4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8
Safety Requirements ................................................................................................................... 16 Security Requirements ................................................................................................................ 16 Software Quality Attributes ........................................................................................................ 18 Assumptions................................................................................................................................ 20 Constraints .................................................................................................................................. 20 System Environment ................................................................................................................... 20 Design Methodology ................................................................................................................... 21 Risk and Volatile areas ............................................................................................................... 23
5.1 5.2
Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 25 Modules ...................................................................................................................................... 26
6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10
Requirement Paragraph ............................................................................................................... 28 Noun Phrase Analysis ................................................................................................................. 28 Use Case Diagram....................................................................................................................... 30 Sequence Diagram ...................................................................................................................... 31 Data Flow Diagram ..................................................................................................................... 33 Activity Diagram ........................................................................................................................ 35 Collaboration Diagram................................................................................................................ 38 Class Diagram ............................................................................................................................. 38 Class-responsibility-collaboration card....................................................................................... 39 E-R Diagram ............................................................................................................................... 42
7.1
Tables, Fields and Relationships ................................................................................................. 43
2. Overall Description ..................................................................................................................4
3. External Interface Requirements .........................................................................................10
4. Other Nonfunctional Requirements .....................................................................................16
5. Architecture ............................................................................................................................25 6. UML diagrams .......................................................................................................................28
7. Database Schema ...................................................................................................................43 8. Cost Estimation ......................................................................................................................46 9. Appendix A: Glossary............................................................................................................48 10. Appendix B: References ........................................................................................................49
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Table Of Figures Figure 1. A proposed system of attendance ........................................................................ 1 Figure 2. Antenna circuit and its equivalent ..................................................................... 12 Figure 3. A full NFC/RFID system at 13.56 MHZ ........................................................... 13 Figure 4. NFC relay attack in peer-to-peer mode ............................................................. 17 Figure 5. NFC relay attack in reader/writer mode ............................................................ 17 Figure 6. A pictorial summary of our system ................................................................. 22 Figure 7. Overview of the automated attendance system ................................................. 23 Figure 8. Flow schema of the system................................................................................ 26 Figure 9. Use case diagram of system .............................................................................. 30 Figure 10. Sequence Diagram ........................................................................................... 32 Figure 11. 0 Level DFD .................................................................................................... 33 Figure 12. 1 Level DFD .................................................................................................... 34 Figure 13. Activity diagram for updation of student record ............................................. 35 Figure 14. Activity diagram for attendance status ............................................................ 36 Figure 15. Activity diagram for Record attendance.......................................................... 37 Figure 16. Collaboration diagram ..................................................................................... 38 Figure 17. Class Diagram ................................................................................................. 39 Figure 18. CRC for Admin ............................................................................................... 40 Figure 19. CRC for student ............................................................................................... 41 Figure 20. CRC for nfc_scanner ....................................................................................... 41 Figure 21. E-R Diagram .................................................................................................... 42
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List of Tables
1. Table 1. Hardware Requirements………………………………………………..07 2. Table 2. Software Requirements…………………………………………………07 3. Table 3. Admin Table…………………………………………………………....40 4. Table 4. Parent Table…………………………………………………………….41 5. Table 5. Relation Table…………………………………………………………..41 6. Table 6. Attendance Table……………………………………………………….42 7. Table 7. Student Table…………………………………………………………...42 8. Table 8. Values of variables in COCOMO Model………………………………43 9. Table 9. Acquisition Phase Distribution…………………………………………44 10. Table 10. Software Effort Distribution…………………………………………..44
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1. Introduction 1.1 Background Study As we have seen in our schooling days that in the class when teacher comes he has to take the attendance of students by using pen and paper method, which was a very lengthy and time consuming approach. In today’s era this is very necessary to save time from all other works besides study and to employ that time in studying. So for this we also have to take care of attendance system which takes much time and to make such system in which employed time is very less. By making a system of attendance teacher can give his maximum time to students. To overcome the disadvantages of this attendance system we are proposing the NFC based attendance system for schools, colleges and universities.
In the proposed system implementing a very simple NFC (Near Field Communication) System with an android application device to track the attendance details of the student and providing some access permissions to the student in the campus. The system implemented in NFC was highly secured. Although the higher-layer cryptographic protocols (e.g., SSL) are used to establish a secure channel in order to overcome General Security Threats like Eavesdropping, Data modification, Relay attack, and Lost property and Walk-off.
Figure 1. A proposed system of attendance
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Although NFC based applications run in a similar manner to Bluetooth on mobile devices, the working principal behind Near Field Communication is based on RFID. Therefore it is essential to study the basics of RFID before discussing the technical details of Near Field Communication. As mentioned earlier, RFID system contains 3 essential parts which are the reader, tag, and middleware. We will briefly describe how these components work in sync. The RFID reader is also called an interrogator or an initiator. It is a device that continuously propagates Radio Frequency (RF) signals and waits for a tag to response. Readers can be stationary (fixed RFID) or moving (mobile RFID). Tags, also called transponders, are just basically a microchip with an antenna. They come in three varieties: Passive tags that do not contain a battery, Active tags that have a battery and are constantly broadcasting a signal (just like the reader), and Battery Assisted Passive (BAP) tags where the battery is activated only in presence of an RF field. The tags can be stored in any small device or object according to their applications easily due to their small size. A good example is tags stores on rental cars or criminals for tracking purposes. They can also be placed in animal collars or in garments in a clothes shop for inventory purposes. A reader can be programmed to accept information only from particular tags. For example, in faculty parking spaces on a university campus, only the faculty is allowed to pass through whereas student cards are rejected. This depends on the frequency, modulation, encryption, etc. and this decision is made by a form of middleware installed on the reader.
1.2 Project Scope This attendance system is based on very innovative technique of NFC and offers very easy way to register day-to-day attendance in any school, college and institution. This system saves the time, of teachers or lecturers, which is employed in manual pen and paper system and gives accurate information about attendance of any class or student.
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This system has a very wide scope in future as this is very effective system for making day to day attendances in schools, colleges, universities. As this system has a power of providing instant information to parents also so it has a very good scope. It is low cost and effective so this can also be applied in companies for employee attendances. In future it can also be made for various cross platforms like Windows, Linux, MacOS etc.
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2. Overall Description 2.1 Product Perspective In an effort to improve attendance registration system, researchers worked on the improvement from different perspective. Some systems are computer-based which may be online or offline system. For instance, a desktop application in which all the list of registered students for a particular course will be displayed when the lecturer start the application. The attendance registration is done by clicking a check box next to the name of students that are present, and then a register button is clicked to mark their presence. Another similar project was proposed, but in this case the student will have to register individually using client server socket program from their device (laptop). Registering the attendance by proxy is eliminated in the first project since the lecturer will see each and every student in the class, while in the latter case student snapshot is taking by the client application. Even though in both projects the time wastage is also there, but still it is an improvement on the manual process since attendance data can be stored safely and reports can be easily generated. With the opinion that attendance management is ignored by current educational administration management system, focusing only on register management, education plan, course management, etc. as a result we have developed an attendance management system using Android, NFC and MySQL. Our system is a web based that used card technology for student’s identification, and registering attendance into the database. Our system presents a commercial system based on NFC for attendance management for schools and colleges. The system can send SMS and email alert to parents/guardians of the students automatically. The student will register at the gate by touching NFC device with their NFC tag and send the data to server in the school. The server will process the attendance data and update database. When a student touch the reader it sends the data to the database for comparison with the ID stored in the memory, if the ID exists attendance is made and data in the database is updated.
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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 which was 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, household access control and security, blood glucose meter, etc. Another NFC project is attendance supervision for college and school. This service will allow lecturers, administrators and parents to instantly know the attendance status of their children. This attendance system is aim at providing parents real-time information about their children’s arrival and departure. This project has two goals: creating a ubiquitous computing system where relation between people, practice, and technology happen as a part of a natural interaction paradigm, and to deliver applications that replace some of the tasks that cause the teachers, students, and other staff to spend time daily. The hardware used in the project includes NFC-based active devices (Nokia 6212 and Samsung Nexus S), NFC-enabled passive devices (Topaz, Touchatag, and Nokia), NFC readers (ACSACR-122U), and NFC Server Hosts linked to the university network which handle the communication with the readers. This host runs the software applications that provide access to the reader. In the attendance system each room has NFC reader which is connected to university’s network. Contactless technology especially NFC can be utilized to make university life easier. Therefore, Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) introduced NFC-based student attendance monitoring system. The system can be used to track attendance percentage, in order to put the university’s rule concerning writing exam without a certain attendance percentage into practice. Similarly, a mobile phone attendance system for small office employees was presented. The employee will touch the NFC-enabled mobile device with their card, and then the employee data (ID, Photo, Time in/Time out, and Date) will be sent to the backend system. Therefore, we are proposing an easy to use web based attendance registration system that will require no device other than NFC-enabled device like mobile-phone.
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2.2 Product Features
RFID Based Attendance Technology: - This attendance 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.
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.
Tracking System: - To ensure the correctness of attendances this system has a complementary tool “Attendance Status Tracker” which gives the instant status of attendance and teacher can cross check that all attendances which have registered on the day are correct. This complementary tool can also be used by student and their parents to check attendance status of student.
Smart Id: - This software requires a smart id i.e. NFC Tag, NFC Smart Card to register one’s attendance.
2.3 User Classes and Characteristics
Admin: - College/University management is the super most user of this system. The authorized person from the management can edit the details of any student related to his name, id, parents etc.
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Teacher: - Teacher is that user of this system who can delete the attendance of any student if it is fake only on that day on which it has been made. Teacher can also check the attendance status of whole class or a particular student.
Student: - Student is the low level user who has to register his day to day attendance by simply touching his NFC tag to the NFC scanner. Student cannot interact with the scanner any more. To check his attendance status and attendance percentage he has to use the different application Attendance Status Tracker provided with his username and password.
Parent: - Parents of the students can also use the supplementary application Attendance Status Tracker to check the attendance status of their children remotely from anywhere.
2.4 Operating Environment Hardware Requirements: -
Hardware
Reason
NFC Android Phone/Android NFC Scanner
To scan id and register one’s attendance
NFC Tag/NFC Smart Card
Smart ID related to only one & required to make attendance Table 1. Hardware Requirements
Software Requirement: 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 2. Software Requirements
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Server Side:
Web Server: Apache 2
Database server: MySQL
Operating System: Linux
Version: Ubuntu 12.04
Processor: Dual Core 1.6 GHz.
1GB RAM
Client Side:
A reliable Internet connection
Operating System: Android 4.1 and above
2.5 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 NFCScanner must be an android device. Device must be connected to the internet so that database can be updated after every attendance. The second constraint of this system that every student must have an NFC tag to register his attendance.
2.6 Assumptions and Dependencies In the development of this system assumption which have been made primarily is that when a student register his attendance he has only his NFC tag. He is not making fake attendance of any other student just by showing his tag also. 8
Another assumption that has been made is that the student is making attendance from inside the class means he is attending the class. We can say that this system is dependent on an operator who is watching students while making attendances through their NFC tags that attendances which is being made is true.
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3. External Interface Requirements 3.1 User Interfaces In this attendance system management can only interact with the system. Student cannot interact with the system. A student can only register his attendance by simply bringing his NFC tag near the scanner. Admin has the power of adding and deleting any tag from the system and reviewing the status of attendance. Parents can also interact with the supplementary tool Attendance Status Tracker to check his child’s attendance status. The user interfaces with user can interact are as following:
Admin Login: - This is the login interface in which admin has to login himself first of all so that he can access the further options. Every authentic user has a username and password to login in the system. The supplementary tool Attendance Status Tracker also has login interface. In that application teacher, student and parents can also login. Everyone is provided with his unique username and password to get access of application by management. After login further more action can be done.
Choice: - Choice is the second interface of this system in which some choices are provided for admin. After logging in admin has to choose one of them like check attendance status, add a new tag, delete a tag or record attendance of students. In the supplementary tool the only choice which is given to students and parents is to check the attendance status while teacher can also check the attendance status of the whole class.
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Record Attendance: - This interface is the main interface of the system in which a student can register his attendance by simply touching his NFC tag with the system. In the beginning of day admin login and open this interface after that a student can make his attendance.
Add/Delete tags: - This is the interface in which admin can delete and add a new NFC tag. This option is available only for management.
Attendance status Class/Student: - In this interface admin can check the attendance status of whole class as well as particular student that who is present and not on any day. This interface is also available in Attendance Status Tracker application for parents, students and teachers. Student and parent can only check their attendances while teacher can also check the attendances of whole class.
3.2 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 11
transformer circuit as shown in Figure 2. This circuit and the whole electronic system in Figure 3 can be analyzed to design the parameters which will provide coupled resonance at 13.56 Mhz.
Figure 2. Antenna circuit and its equivalent
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Figure 3. A full NFC/RFID system at 13.56 MHZ
3.3 Software Interfaces In this project following software has been used during the development:1. AndroidOS: - This system is basically has been developed for android devices because now a days 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. 2. IntelliJIdea IDE: - In this project we have used IntelliJIdea Integrated Development Environment to code the project. 3. ArgoUML: - To make UML diagrams we have used ArgoUML tool.
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4. EDraw: - This software has been used in our project to make E-R diagram and Data Flow Diagrams. 5. Database: - We have used MySQL as database for our project to store all records related to student informations, attendance records, tags records, user records like username, passwords etc. 6. WebServer: - To store database online we have used Apache 2 WebServer. Whenever a student makes an attendance, to make his record update instantly, we have stored our database on the Web Server. 7. PHP: - Preprocessor HyperText Programming language has been used in this project as a middleware between android NFC scanner and Server. Whenever a request is generated from the system it is transferred to webserver to get response. But actually request firstly goes to PHP page then to the server. In the same manner response is received from WebServer.
3.4 Communications Interfaces 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 14
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.
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4. Other Nonfunctional Requirements 4.1 Safety Requirements This attendance system is based on NFC technology so this is safe in all the ways but loop hole are found everywhere. In this attendance system the main safety requirement is that we have to look after that a student make only his attendance. He does not make the fake attendance of his friend by touching his tag when his friend is not present. The other safety requirement is that student have to care his NFC tag so that the tag does not get corrupted.
4.2 Security Requirements Security Threats Relevant to NFC 1. Denial of Service: In NFC, a DoS attack is possible because when an NFC reader and a tag are close enough, the reader will start reading the tag even if the tag is empty. This is because the tag is passive and harvests energy from the signal from the reader. Thus, the reader must continuously poll for tags to detect if there is a tag available in its range. This means that the NFC reader could be occupied or kept busy by putting an NFC tag within the reader's proximity. To avoid this, most mobile phones automatically turn off their NFC read and write functionality when the screen is off. 2. NFC relay attack: It has been suggested that NFC systems are particularly vulnerable to relay attacks. Francis presented a practical relay attack on NFC peer-to-peer mode using Near Field Communication Interface and Protocol (NFCIP) between two NFC enabled mobile phones. The setup of this relay attack is shown in Figure. Specially, two proxy NFC phones that are 100 meters away from each other establish a Bluetooth connection to forward messages from the initiator device to the target device. One of the
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proxy phones presents itself as the target phone to the initiator while the other one presents itself as the initiator to the target phone. An NFC relay attack is possible not only in peer-to-peer mode, but also in reader/writer mode. Francis presented a proof-of-concept relay experiment. To be more specific, two proxy enabled phones establish a Bluetooth connection between them to forward messages between a contactless smart card and a reader. One of the proxy phones presents itself as the contactless smart card to the original reader while the other presents itself as the reader to the contactless smart card. Although both relay experiments used a Bluetooth connection between the two relay phones, any high-speed and reliable communication link between them would work.
Figure 4. NFC relay attack in peer-to-peer mode
Figure 5. NFC relay attack in reader/writer mode
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3. Spoof the tag content: An attacker could supply false information, such as a wormURL or a false short code, to a user's device. For example, a tag in a smart poster which supports purchase of bus tickets via SMS messages could be replaced with another tag that contains an SMS message to a premium-rate service. When a user his or her phone to tap on the tag, the phone receives a pre-composed SMS message from the tag. After that, the user is asked if he or she wants to send the message. However, a user in a hurry might not check the SMS message carefully and hence might send the false SMS message. 4. Tag cloning: The NDEF signature scheme ignores the tag UID. This means that an NDEF message written on a tag can be copied and written to another tag. However, some tags, such as DESFire EV1, and Ultralight C tags, can be set to require user authentication before changing the data stored on them. This mechanism helps to lower the risk of tag cloning since only readers that share a secret key with the tag can access the data stored in the tag. However, if one of these readers is dishonest, it can reproduce the tag content without any obstacle. 5. Tag replacement or tag stacking: An attacker can replace a tag with his or her own tag that contains whatever malicious contents he or she wishes. He or she could also stack a fake tag on top of the original tag to achieve the same goal as a tag replacement attack. However, in the latter case, if the tag supports collision detection, such as NFC type 4 tags, then NFC readers might detect the collision and take proper counteractions.
4.3 Software Quality Attributes This attendance system is very flexible reliable system which saves times an d gives correct information. The basic quality attributes of this system are as following:
Adaptability: This system is a new way of making day to day attendances in which no pen and paper work is required and fast also which saves time as well. So this system is adaptable in various universities, colleges, schools as well as in companies. 18
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 attendance system is based on NFC technology and to make attendances 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 attendance 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 attendance system is reliable because it gives the correct information about attendances of anyone and as everyone has a unique id so there is no worry of fake proxy.
Reusability: In this system a student is given with a NFC tag and when he leaves the schools permanently at that time that NFC tag can be allocated for a new student who take admission in the institution. So we can say that it is reusable.
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4.4 Assumptions In the development of this system assumption which have been made primarily is that when a student register his attendance he has only his NFC tag. He is not making fake attendance of any other student just by showing his tag also. Another assumption that has been made is that the student is making attendance from inside the class means he is attending the class. We can say that this system is dependent on an operator who is watching students while making attendances through their NFC tags that attendances which is being made is true.
4.5 Constraints This system is designed for Android based NFC devices. In this system the major constraint is that it is very necessary that the NFCScanner must be an android device. Device must be connected to the internet so that database can be updated after every attendance. The second constraint of this system that every student must have an NFC tag to register his attendance.
4.6 System Environment For this project the system required is an android based NFC scanner and an NFC tag or NFC Mobile. Scanner will scan the tag and attendance will be recorded.
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4.7 Design Methodology The student/faculty/staff members will be equipped with a NFC enabled smart-phone. 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. Another web-based system will also have to be developed to oversee and monitor this system. This would be the system used by the administrators and instructors to check student activities etc. Students would also be given access to this system so they can check their semester progress or check their e-Wallet balances. As we mentioned in the objective, this proposed NFC system would assist in automated attendance, as an identification and security clearance device and as an e-wallet. Now we will tackle each of these areas separately. The key to the academic success of a university is punctuality of the classes. The taking of the attendance wastes around 5-10 minutes of important teaching time. This proposed system has the potential to replace all the manual attendances still taken in classes and eliminate this waste.
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Figure 6. A pictorial summary of our system
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Figure 7. Overview of the automated attendance system
4.8 Risk and Volatile areas The risk in this project which can be arise are as following:1. Database failure: - One of the risks of this project that the failure of database where we have stored all the data about our system. If the database fails then this system cannot work properly because if no database is there than login process will fail and further more action cannot be taken. So we to keep a backup of database so that we can fight with this risk. 2. Server Down/Failure: - Another risk which can be come is that the server get down or failed than no request will be sent and no response will be received. In such conditions the system will fail.
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3. NFC Scanner Problem: - The problem can be faced in NFC scanner also. It is a hardware device and there are some possibilities of getting it damage so we must have a backup hardware or scanner. 4. NFC Tag Problem: - NFC tag which is very necessary in making attendance can also create problem if it get damage or corrupt. The data associated with the tag may get corrupted in that case one’s attendance will not be recorded. We should have some backup tags which can be allocated in such situations.
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5. Architecture This software design specification introduces a Near Field Communication (NFC) based Attendance System for schools, colleges and universities. Traditionally, teacher has to take attendance using pen and paper method which is very lengthy and time consuming way. The NFC based Attendance System has been designed to simplify attendance monitoring. The system replaces manual rolls and gives details of student’s attendance in real-time. Figure 8 shows the proposed system architecture. The basic architecture of this system is that when student shows his NFC tag to the NFC scanner at that time data is matched from the database and if the data are correct then student gets entry in the class and his attendance is counted and database is updated instantly. The main actors are management, teachers and students. Student has to touch his tag to record his attendance. Teacher can cross check attendances which have been registered on the day while management can add and delete the NFC tags and can check the attendance status.
5.1 Overview This system is an android application for daily attendance system in schools, colleges, and institutions of students which uses NFC technology. It has a unique identification NFC tag of a student by using that he can register his attendance. This application also provide the facility of cross checking the attendances which have been made on the day. It also facilitate parents and students to check their attendances of the day and month as well and percentages of attendances. It generates the list of debarred students automatically on the basis of their attendance percentages.
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Figure 8. Flow schema of the system
5.2 Modules The modules of this system are as following:
Login: - This is the login interface in which admin has to login himself first of all so that he can access the further options. Every authentic user has a username and password to login in the system. The supplementary tool Attendance Status Tracker also has login interface. In that application teacher, student and parents can also login. Everyone is provided
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with his unique username and password to get access of application by management. After login further more action can be done.
Choice: - Choice is the second interface of this system in which some choices are provided for admin. After logging in admin has to choose one of them like check attendance status, add a new tag, delete a tag or record attendance of students. In the supplementary tool the only choice which is given to students and parents is to check the attendance status while teacher can also check the attendance status of the whole class.
Record Attendance: - This interface is the main interface of the system in which a student can register his attendance by simply touching his NFC tag with the system. In the beginning of day admin login and open this interface after that a student can make his attendance.
Add/Delete tags: - This is the interface in which admin can delete and add a new NFC tag. This option is available only for management.
Attendance status Class/Student: - In this interface admin can check the attendance status of whole class as well as particular student that who is present and not on any day. This interface is also available in Attendance Status Tracker application for parents, students and teachers. Student and parent can only check their attendances while teacher can also check the attendances of whole class.
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6. UML diagrams The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose modeling language in the field of software engineering, which is designed to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system. The UML diagrams of this project are as following:-
6.1 Requirement Paragraph Make an android application for daily attendance system in schools, colleges, and institutions for students which uses NFC technology. There should be a unique identification NFC tag of a student by using that he can register his attendance. To make attendance of any student it is very necessary that first of all the admin must login. This application should also provide the facility of cross checking the attendances which have been made on the day, to the teacher. It also facilitate the parents and students to check their attendances of the any day and month as well and percentages of attendances. It should generate the list of debarred students automatically on the basis of their attendance percentages. Admin can also add new students and can delete old students in database.
6.2 Noun Phrase Analysis After analyzing the requirement paragraph we can see that there are following nouns:1. Android application 2. Daily attendance system 3. Institutions 4. Student 5. NFC technology 6. NFC Tag 28
7. Attendance 8. Admin 9. Parents 10. Database
From the upper list of nouns we can easily say that users of this system are:1. Admin 2. Student 3. Parent
List of verbs which can be find out from the paragraph are:1. Login 2. Cross checking of attendances 3. Check attendance status 4. Generate the list of debarred students 5. Add new student/tag 6. Delete old student/tag
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6.3 Use Case Diagram A use case diagram at its simplest is a representation of a user's interaction with the system and depicting the specifications of a use case. A use case diagram can portray the different types of users of a system and the various ways that they interact with the system. This type of diagram is typically used in conjunction with the textual use case and will often be accompanied by other types of diagrams as well. The use case diagram of this NFC based attendance system is as following:-
Figure 9. Use case diagram of system
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6.4 Sequence Diagram A Sequence diagram is an interaction diagram that shows how processes operate with one another and in what order. It is a construct of a Message Sequence Chart. A sequence diagram shows object interactions arranged in time sequence. It depicts the objects and classes involved in the scenario and the sequence of messages exchanged between the objects needed to carry out the functionality of the scenario. Sequence diagrams are typically associated with use case realizations in the Logical View of the system under development. Sequence diagrams are sometimes called event diagrams or event scenarios. Sequence diagram for this project is as following:-
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Figure 10. Sequence Diagram
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6.5 Data Flow Diagram A data flow diagram (DFD) is a graphical representation of the "flow" of data through an information system, modeling its process aspects. A DFD is often used as a preliminary step to create an overview of the system, which can later be elaborated. DFDs can also be used for the visualization of data processing (structured design).
A DFD shows what kind of information will be input to and output from the system, where the data will come from and go to, and where the data will be stored. It does not show information about the timing of processes, or information about whether processes will operate in sequence or in parallel (which is shown on a flowchart). Data Flow Diagram for this system is as following:-
Figure 11. 0 Level DFD
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1 Level DFD: -
Figure 12. 1 Level DFD
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6.6 Activity Diagram Activity diagrams are graphical representations of workflows of stepwise activities and actions with support for choice, iteration and concurrency. In the Unified Modeling Language, activity diagrams are intended to model both computational and organizational processes (i.e. workflows). Activity diagrams show the overall flow of control. Various activity diagrams for this system are as following:-
Figure 13. Activity diagram for updation of student record 35
Figure 14. Activity diagram for attendance status
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Figure 15. Activity diagram for recording attendance
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6.7 Collaboration Diagram A collaboration diagram describes interactions among objects in terms of sequenced messages. Collaboration diagrams represent a combination of information taken from class, sequence, and use case diagrams describing both the static structure and dynamic behavior of a system. The Collaboration diagram for this system is as following:-
Figure 16. Collaboration Diagram
6.8 Class Diagram In software engineering, a class diagram in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a type of static structure diagram that describes the structure of a system by showing the system's classes, their attributes, operations (or methods), and the relationships among objects. The class diagram is the main building block of object oriented modelling. It is 38
used both for general conceptual modelling of the systematics of the application, and for detailed modelling translating the models into programming code. Class diagrams can also be used for data modeling. The classes in a class diagram represent both the main objects, interactions in the application and the classes to be programmed.
Figure 17. Class Diagram
6.9 Class-responsibility-collaboration card Class-responsibility-collaboration (CRC) cards are a brainstorming tool used in the design of object-oriented software. They were originally proposed by Ward Cunningham and Kent Beck as a teaching tool, but are also popular among expert designers and recommended by extreme programming supporters. Martin Fowler has described CRC
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cards as a viable alternative to UML sequence diagram to design the dynamics of object interaction and collaboration CRC cards are usually created from index cards. Members of a brainstorming session will write up one CRC card for each relevant class/object of their design. The card is partitioned into three areas: 1. On top of the card, the class name 2. On the left, the responsibilities of the class 3. On the right, collaborators (other classes) with which this class interacts to fulfill its responsibilities Using a small card keeps the complexity of the design at a minimum. It focuses the designer on the essentials of the class and prevents her/him from getting into its details and inner workings at a time when such detail is probably counter-productive. It also forces the designer to refrain from giving the class too many responsibilities. Because the cards are portable, they can easily be laid out on a table and re-arranged while discussing a design with other people.
Figure 18. CRC for Admin
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Figure 19. CRC for student
Figure 20. CRC for nfc_scanner
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6.10 E-R Diagram In software engineering, an entity–relationship model (ER model) is a data model for describing the data or information aspects of a business domain or its process requirements, in an abstract way that lends itself to ultimately being implemented in a database such as a relational database. The main components of ER models are entities (things) and the relationships that can exist among them, and databases. The Entity – Relationship diagram for this system is as below:-
Figure 21. E-R Diagram 42
7. Database Schema
7.1 Tables, Fields and Relationships In this project to store data we have made following tables:1. Admin table: This table is used to store the data of the admins of the system. This table has three fields username, password and name. Whenever an admin login to the system then his details are matched from this table. If the details are matched then he get access. The detailed schema of the table is as following:-
Field-Name
DataType
Allows Null
Default Value
Extra
Username
varchar(50)
No
none
PRIMARY KEY
Password
varchar(50)
No
none
Name
varchar(70)
No
none
Table 3. Admin Table
2. Parent: This is the second table of our project in which we have stored the details of the parents of the students like their names, mobile number, username, and password. When a parent login to the supplementary application Attendance Status Tracker then his details are matched from this table. If the details are matched then he get access so that he can check his ward’s attendances. The detailed schema of the table is as following:43
Field-Name
DataType
Allows Null
Default Value
Extra
parent_id
int(11)
No
none
AUTO_INCREMENT & PRIMARY KEY
parent_name
varchar(50)
No
none
username
varchar(30)
No
none
password
varchar(30)
No
none
Mobile
varchar(11)
No
none
Table 4. Parent Table 3. Relation: This is the third table of our project which contains the information of relation between student and parent. In this table we have kept the record of parent_id and student_id. When a parent wants to check his child’s attendance status automatically server responses to him according to this table. The detailed schema of the table is as following:-
Field-Name
DataType
Allows Null
Default Value
parent_id
int(11)
No
none
student_id
varchar(11)
No
none
Table 5. Relation Table 4. Student_attendance: This table is the main table of this system because it contains the information of attendances of various student’s like on which date and time who was present in the class. This table has three fields student_id, date, and time. The detailed schema of the table is as following:44
Field-Name
DataType
Allows Null
Default Value
Extra
Student_id
varchar(11)
No
none
PRIMARY KEY
Date
date
No
none
Time
time
No
none
Table 6. Attendance Table 5. Student_info: This table contains the all information about student like his name, branch, sem, tag associated with him, student_id, username, password etc. The detailed schema is as following:Field-Name
DataType
Allows Null
Default Value
Extra
Student_id
varchar(11)
No
none
PRIMARY KEY
Name
varchar(70)
No
none
Username
varchar(30)
No
none
Password
varchar(30)
No
None
Class
varchar(30)
No
None
Branch
varchar(50)
No
None
Sem
int(1)
No
none
Gender
varchar(1)
No
None
Cotact_number
varchar(11)
No
None
Rfid
Varchar(16)
No
None
Table 7. Student Table Databases: In our project we are using MySQL database for storing our data. The data will be on server which is Apache 2.
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8. Cost Estimation After reading all the requirements, layouts and functions of this proposed system the cost can be estimated on the basis of following points and COCOMO model. 1. Android based NFC Scanner is required. 2. NFC tags are required. 3. As the system is for colleges and institutions so the database will be large so a good database management is required. The basic COCOMO equations take the form:Effort Applied (E) = ab(SLOC)bb [ person-months ] Development Time (D) = cb(Effort Applied)db [months] People required (P) = Effort Applied / Development Time [count] where, SLOC is the estimated number of delivered lines (expressed in thousands ) of code for project. The coefficients ab, bb, cb and db are given in the following table: Software project ab
bb
cb
db
Organic
2.4 1.05 2.5 0.38
Semi-detached
3.0 1.12 2.5 0.35
Embedded
3.6 1.20 2.5 0.32
Table 8. Values of variables in COCOMO Model
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Now in our project the no of effective source line of code (SLOC) is 1740 (includes only data declaration statements and executable statements) and the amount payble to the person working on the project per month is $100 (₹6153.00). So according to the COCOMO Model the estimated cost is:Software Development (Elaboration and Construction) Effort = 7.3 Person-months Schedule = 7.1 Months Cost = $725 (₹44609.24) Total Equivalent Size = 1740 SLOC Acquisition Phase Distribution Phase Effort (Person-months) Schedule (Months) Average Staff Cost (Dollars) Inception 0.4 0.9 0.5 $44 Elaboration 1.7 2.6 0.7 $174 Construction 5.5 4.4 1.2 $551 Transition 0.9 0.9 1.0 $87 Table 9. Acquisition Phase Distribution Software Effort Distribution for RUP/MBASE (Person-Months) Phase/Activity Inception Elaboration Construction Transition Management 0.1 0.2 0.6 0.1 Environment/CM 0.0 0.1 0.3 0.0 Requirements 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.0 Design 0.1 0.6 0.9 0.0 Implementation 0.0 0.2 1.9 0.2 Assessment 0.0 0.2 1.3 0.2 Deployment 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 Table 10. Software Effort Distribution
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9. Appendix A: Glossary 1
NFC :-
Near Field Communication
2
RFID :-
Radio Frequency Identification
3
Android :-
Smart phone operating system
4
COCOMO :-
Constructive Cost Model
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10. Appendix B: References 1. Silberschatz,Korth,Sudarshan
“Database
System
Concepts”:5thEd.
New
York:McGraw-Hill(May 2006) 2. Grady Booch,James Rambaugh,Ivar Jacobson “Unified Modeling Language User Guide” :1stEd. Addition Wesley(April 1998) 3. SAMS“Teach yourself UML in 24 hours”:4thEd.USA (March 2004). 4. Thomas B. Valesky “Enterprise JavaBeans(TM): Developing Component-Based Distributed
Applications”
ISBN-13:
978-0201604467,
Addison-Wesley
Professional (May 1999). 5. Roger S. Pressman “Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach” :7th Ed. Singapore: McGraw-Hill(July2010) pp 841-861. 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFC
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