Two SparkFun Simultaneous UHF RFID readers interfaced to the same Arduino Uno

Sensors NFC & RFID
1

Hi! Super simple question: is it even possible to control/interface two Sparkfun Simultaneous UHF RFID readers with one Arduino Uno? I already have one connected to my Arduino Uno but would like to use two to get two antenna ports, but I’m not sure if it’s at all possible.

If it is, what’s the right way to go about connecting the two UHF boards to the Arduino Uno?

Any help is appreciated!

2

I am not expecting it will work.

1.SoftWareSerial is used to communicate with the RFID shield. You can not activate two SoftwareSerial in parallel. Only one of them (the last you create) will be able to read and write, the first one only write.

  1. I suspect you will have a short memory, depending on the sketch you use.

  2. I suspect that you will have to change the library and move some global variables from the header to the cpp file in order to have 2 different instances that do not conflict.

  3. I expect that having RFID signals from different boards close to each other will already cause interference.

I don’t know what you exactly plan to do, but there are RFID antenna multiplexers. Search for it on the web ( e.g. https://www.idntx.com/catena). You will need to make modifications to the software to select the antenna. Or look to 2 port RFID (e.g. https://www.jadaktech.com/products/thin … id-series/)

Edit :

Of course, you can always consider buying an extra Arduino Uno board & RFID shield and merging the data from the 2 solutions together.