RFID Newbie Help

Wireless & IoT
1

Hello,

I’m a student with basically no knowledge of electronics, but I’m working on a project at the moment where I need to identify toys that a dog plays with. I know I need something in the toy, my thinking is that it needs to be a sort of passive RFID tag. There will be a unit on the dog collar which has a few other sensors as well (not worried about those at the moment) which will need an RFID reader to pick up the tag ID.

I need to create a prototype of this toy reading system, to make sure my idea works, but I’m not entirely sure how to go about it. My major issue at the moment is the range of the RFID, I need something with ideally around 20-30cm but I haven’t been able to find and consumer device that can read this range. I’ve been debating using bluetooth for this test, but I know RFID is realistically what I’ll use in the final product.

I was hoping if anyone had an idea whether I could make something like this using arduino, and whether there are tutorials I could follow, since I am pretty much clueless…?

Alternatively, if anyone knows of something I could buy “off-the-shelf” that I could put in to a toy, which maybe a phone could pick up or comes with a receiver, that would be really useful!! I’ve had a look but the ranges are either too short or too long!

Thank you!

2

Hi Jenjaw. did you finally crack this? Doing something similar (but not with pets).

3

wouldn’t you use the same tags/readers that are used with dogs? Reader may be non-trivial cost. Range is perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

The passive RFID tags with read-only serial numbers are the least costly. Like < $1 I think. The pet implants are more due to the sterility and that marketplace. These and all passive tags have a very short read range - like a half-cm or less. This is to keep the reader’s RF power low and the tag cheap.

The pennies per tag RFID for anti-shoplifting have no serial number. Probably not what you want.

Consider using near field communications products (NFC). My smart phone (Android) has NFC built-in. NFC tags are widely available. Ones I have are about the diameter of a US quarter, and are paper thin. perhaps you can “sew” them on to the object. I put them on the cork-end of wine bottles in a wine refrig. An app on my phone reads the tag and displays a picture of the bottle’s label that I took when putting the bottle down.

Google search for NFC tags and you’ll find a wide variety of sizes, colors.