Identifying Objects Using RF Transmitters and Receivers, and Retrieving Data

Using GSM

Vijayendra R Srinivasa K G
Department of Computer Science and Engineering Department of Computer Science and Engineering
M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology
Bangalore – 560054, Karnataka Bangalore – 560054, Karnataka
E-mail: veejaymania@gmail.com E-mail: srinivasa.kg@gmail.com

Abstract—To provide a system for monitoring and locating The objects that are tagged with the hardware i.e. the
objects using Radio Frequency (RF) transmitters and receivers, transmitters in the vicinity are detected by the corresponding
and querying about the objects using mobile phones. An object receivers and the location are queried using a mobile phone
represents a real world entity. This system is based on RF by means of a GSM modem. The dual technique employed
transmitters that are tagged to the objects of everyday use and in this project is: First, object sensing using the RF
have the capability of transmitting signals and a receiver that transmitters and receivers. Second, user interface provided
detects the transmission of the tagged object and stores its by the mobile phone aid for sensing and querying the
corresponding location in the database which is created personal items simultaneously.
specifically for information maintenance of the tagged objects. This system allowed us to identify a particular challenge
Mobile phones are used to query the location of the tagged that is common to many applications that makes use of large
object by sending a message to the Subscriber Identity Module
people-centric infrastructure provided by mobile phones and
(SIM) connected to a Global System for Mobile
Communications (GSM) modem. This GSM modem fetches the
the cellular network. The challenge is to answer the question
location and other relevant information from the database and of whether a system based on RF transmitters and receiver
encapsulates this information into a message which is sent back can provide sufficient coverage in relatively short period of
to the mobile phone that has requested the information. time. In an extensive evaluation, which includes a real-
world experiment with our object localization prototype, we
therefore analyzed the properties of the coverage obtained
I. INTRODUCTION given a wide range of different operational parameters such
Inexpensive sensing devices are expected to play a as the distance between transmitter and receivers, objects in
major role in future computing systems. They aim to make the path of transmission and range of the transmitters used.
the daily life of their users easier by monitoring everyday In addition to confirming the feasibility of object
physical processes and providing novel features based on localization based on mobile phones, the study can provide
the acquired data. What currently hinders most of the valuable guidelines for the design of future people-centric
conceived systems from becoming commercial applications, sensing systems in general.
however, is a lack of adequate infrastructure of following II. OVERVIEW
types: First, a sensing infrastructure must be installed to
perform an efficient sensing task. Second, a communication This article is a novel approach in locating and also
infrastructure is required to distribute and aggregate retrieving product related information using mobile phones.
readings from multiple transmitters. Finally, a commercial It is difficult to go and locate objects manually or search for
infrastructure is needed to manufacture and deploy the them in a short period of time especially when object
transmitting, receiving and communicating devices like location is unknown. In this paper we are attempting to
GSM modem, and to generate revenue from the system. locate objects irrespective of its distance from the user who
The mobile phone system provides a unique opportunity is trying to track the object. Objects can be located more
to overcome these difficulties. Sensing technologies can be easily if they are equipped with Bluetooth or Infra-Red
implemented using transmitters and a receiver and accessed facilities which nowadays are commonly found in electronic
from the mobile handset via wireless mobile networks. devices likes Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), laptops.
Wide area communication is a core property of the cellular However the drawback of this is the limited range. But we
network. It enables the integration of data from many are extending the idea to locate objects both stationary and
transmitters and the support of applications with backend mobile using RF transmitters and receivers with greater
services such as data storage. This system is effectively used range. On a larger scale this project can be implemented for
in the location of important items that are tagged and their locating landmarks in a city or items in a warehouse. The
location can be queried by various users. Making use of implementation is based on two criteria. Firstly, we assume
these unique properties of mobile phones and the cellular that the objects being tagged are accompanied with a unique
network, we present a system which is concerned with ID. Secondly, each receiver is given a unique locationID
monitoring and locating objects by means of mobile phones. that determines the current location of the object.
978-1-4244-5586-7/10/$26.00 C 2010 IEEE

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 TABLE I. PARAMETER SETTINGS FOR THE FOUR USE CASES

Query InRegion OutRegion Find Gate

Trigger InRegion(obj) OutRegion(obj) InRegion(obj) InRegion(any)

ObjDescription()
ObjDescription() ObjLocation()
Report ObjLocation() OutRegion(obj)
ObjLocation() InRegion(obj)
InRegion(obj)
Tmax   x 

Nmax y1  y2 y3

Qmax   z 

detected and stored in the database. The system will

III. ARCHITECTURE forward this query to the GSM modem, which looks
The system architecture comprises of three parts that is for the corresponding object in the database.
the sensing functionality, storing functionality and querying Various object search strategies can be employed
service. The sensing functionality comprises of RF such as string matching, keyword followed by the
transmitters and receivers that are used to sense the presence object name e.g., Locate Watch. The GSM modem
of tagged objects within the region. An overview of RF will notify the user with a short message containing
transmitters can be found in [1].The storage functionality is object’s location and its description using
used to store all relevant information of the object in the ObjLocation() and ObjDescription() function.
database. The operator provides a user with a database • Gate: This Use case act as a gatekeeper keeping
service in which the user can store application data such as track of new objects entering the sensing region and
reports and other information regarding the objects. The old objects leaving the sensing region by sending
querying service is used by the user for querying necessary corresponding notifications. The data is
information associated with the object using GSM network correspondingly updated in the database. This Use
and Short message service (SMS). An overview of GSM case provides useful information that helps in Find
Architecture and its services can be found in [2,6]. query.
Query services and functions implementing the above
IV. OBJECT TRACKING use cases are provided in Table I. The parameter x, y1, y2,
The object tracking application is used for locating and y3 and z in the table represent the values used in actual
managing objects using Use case via mobile phones. Use system. Trigger service is used to indicate when the query
cases are specified for various functions such as detecting of should produce a result. If the queried object is in the
objects within the sensing range, notify objects that have left sensing region then query produces a result otherwise it
the sensing range, querying about objects, identifying new sends a default message “Object Not Found”. Report service
objects entering and leaving the sensing range. These use specifies the information the query should generate if the
cases are defined as follows, object is found. The report consists of location and complete
• OutRegion: This Use case allows the user to set up description of the object e.g., a restaurant object consists of
their cell phones to keep track of objects which a report specifying the location, type, theme and facilities.
leave the receiver sensing region. This includes Different system limits can be specified using the following
tracing of object location before and after the loss parameters,
event. Most recent location of the object will be • Tmax: maximum time taken by a query or the
stored and notification will be sent when an object maximum query time.
leaves the sensing region using OutRegion(obj) • Nmax: maximum number of objects detected by the
function. receiver.
• InRegion: This Use case allows the user to set up • Qmax: maximum no of reports that can be
their cell phones to keep track of all objects within generated by the system.
the receiver sensing region. This includes tracing of For OutRegion scenario Tmax, Nmax, Qmax all are
objects location and storing it in the database. irrelevant since the object is outside the sensing region of
Current location of the object will be stored and the system. In InRegion scenario Nmax is relevant as it
notification will be sent to indicate the presence of specifies the maximum number of objects the receiver can
object in the sensing region using InRegion(obj) detect and if the system exceeds this limit then unused
function. objects or out of region objects should be replaced by new
• Find: This Use case allows the user to query an ones. In Find scenario Tmax and Qmax are relevant .Tmax
object from the list of objects that are already being is dependent upon the network traffic and distance between

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the user and the GSM modem. Tmax is also limited by the infrastructure. GSM modem searches the database and sends
effective search strategy employed in the system. The Find a report if the object exists, otherwise object not found reply
query is sent to backend database of the system

Figure 1. System Design

is sent. Qmax is limited on the number of objects stored in specific signals into audio, video, or data formats. Radio
the database. Maximum number of reports is proportional to techniques limit localized interference and noise. Each RF
the maximum number of objects stored in the database .Gate receiver is associated with a unique location ID. This ID is
scenario is concerned with Nmax parameter, when an object used to determine the location of the object. RF receivers
is identified it verifies with the Nmax before its information display the unique object ID being detected; all the relevant
is stored in the database. data of this object are stored in the database along with its
location. RF receivers are also available in market with
V. SYSTEM DESIGN various specifications e.g., MC33591, U4311B.
The system design provides the details of the components An object could be a stationary or a mobile object. It
employed in the system. It consists of RF transmitters could represent any real world entity. The objects are
incorporated into the objects, RF receiver, and a database to incorporated with transmitters that are programmed with
store all the relevant information regarding the objects and a different frequencies and identified by a unique ID. The RF
GSM modem used for sending and receiving SMS regarding receivers are used to identify these objects within the region.
querying of the objects and its location. The components of The area of the region depends upon the receiver used. The
the system are provided in Fig. 1. wireless communication network is built on User Datagram
The RF transmitters operate in a radio frequency range Protocol (UDP) or Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
of 3 KHz to 300 GHz. RF transmitters are programmed at running over Internet Protocol (IP).
different frequencies and integrated with objects to be Database represents a storage device like hard disk. Size
located. Each RF transmitter will be associated with a of the database depends upon the application. Database is
unique ID.RF transmitters can be used to operate in low attached to the GSM modem. A GSM modem can be an
frequency range as well as high frequency range depending external device or a PC Card / PCMCIA Card. GSM modem
upon its application. Frequency range switch is used to requires a SIM card from a wireless carrier in order to
select the desired frequency range for each transmitter. operate. All SIM cards are associated with a Personal
Modulation techniques employed by the transmitter are Identity Number (PIN) used to unlock the mobile station
Amplitude modulation (AM), Frequency modulation (FM), (MS). All the queries regarding the objects are sent to this
Frequency shift key (FSK), Amplitude shift key (ASK), SIM via the GSM network. GSM modems support a
Phase shift key (PSK). Data rate is the amount of data common set of standard AT commands used to provide
transmitted in bits per second. RF transmitters are available Short message service e.g., SIM300_HD_V1.06.
in market with a wide range of specifications e.g., LR series, A user agent is a potential user who sends short message
LC series, HP3 series. RF transmitters transmit the unique queries regarding the object using mobile devices such as
ID via the communication network. cell phone, PDA. The queries are sent to the GSM modem
RF receivers are electronic devices that separate radio via the GSM network using the find use case. The GSM
signals from one another and use demodulator to convert

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modem interacts with the database and sends back the VI. PROTOCOL STACK
corresponding information to the user via the GSM network. The protocol stack provides the integration and
functionality of various parts of the model as shown in Fig.
2. The protocol stack can be divided into two parts: the

Figure 2. Protocol Stack

hardware specification, which describes the protocols for transmitted by the RF transmitters within its sensing
RF transmitters, RF receivers and database, and the software region. RF receiver displays the unique ID of the
specification, which provides protocols and function needed object detected along with its location ID. These
to query information from the GSM modem. The protocol IDs are sent to the front end. Visual studio along
stack comprises of the following elements: with programming language like java, .NET can be
• RF transmitters are integrated to the objects. They used to create a front end forms to enter the
are programmed to use a particular frequency in the description of the object and send it to the database.
radio frequency range. An RF transmitter generally RF receivers detect all signals transmitted in the
includes a modulator that modulates an input signal radio frequency range.
and a radio frequency power amplifier that is • Database comprises of secondary memory devices
coupled to the modulator to amplify the modulated such as hard disk. Size of the database is directly
input signal. The radio frequency power amplifier is proportional to the area of application. RF receivers
coupled to an antenna that transmits the amplified are used to store the description and location of the
modulated input signal. The modulation techniques objects in the database. And the GSM modem is
are as follows: 1) AM causes the baseband signal to used to query the objects from the database. The
vary the amplitude of the carrier wave to create the database can be created using software toolkit like
desired information content. 2) FM causes the MySQL. The database is integrated to RF receivers
instantaneous frequency of a sine wave carrier to and GSM modem using programming languages
depart from the centre frequency by an amount like .NET, J2ME, Java running on Windows or
proportional to the instantaneous value of the Linux Operating System (OS). Database should be
modulating signal.3) ASK transmits data by varying frequently updated to provide valid data to the users
the amplitude of the transmitted signal.4) FSK is a of the system.
digital modulation scheme using two or more output • Radio frequency specifies the air interface, which
frequencies.5) PSK is a digital modulation scheme also includes the frequencies used, modulation
in which the phase of the transmitted signal is technique employed and power transmitted. Radio
varied in accordance with the baseband data signal. frequency operates over a range of 3 KHz to 300
Each RF transmitter transmits a unique ID that GHz.
represents the object associated with it to the • Baseband provides a description of basic connection
corresponding receiver. This data signal is establishment, packet formats, timing and basic
transmitted using wireless network with TCP/IP and Quality of service (QoS) parameters used by the
UDP protocol. system.
• RF receivers are located in each region with a • Link manager is used for link set-up and
unique location ID. This Location ID is used to management of connections between devices like
locate the region in which RF receiver is placed. RF database, GSM modem, transmitters and receivers.
receivers use wireless network to receive the signals Link manager performs functions such as

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 synchronization, capability management, and visitor to the city can query from any mobile phone
quality of service, power control, transmission mode and get information about the location.
and authentication. • Managing items in a warehouse: Finding an item in
• The network applications make use of standard TCP a huge warehouse is a task that can be accomplished
and UDP protocol. Transmission Control Protocol using the design.
sends the data directly between two components, • Usage as emergency services: A helpline number
and stay connected for the duration of the transfer. attached to the GSM can be used by people to locate
User Datagram Protocol sends the data packets it hospitals, fire station and police station in case of
into the network without requiring prior connections emergencies.
and provides best effort service. TCP/UDP protocol • Locating personal objects: Objects used by people
runs over standard IP protocol. TCP/UDP over IP is on a daily basis like spectacles, wallet, and so on
described in [3]. may get displaced very often. Using transmitter and
• GSM modem is integrated to the database. receiver, these objects can be tracked.
E.g., .NET platform are used to interface GSM with • Organization support: Within an institution it can
the database. It makes use of standard AT modem be used to locate libraries, canteens, departments
commands for sending and receiving SMS. Each and sport complex.
GSM modem is associated with a SIM that is used
by the user to query Information about an object. IX. CONCLUSION
All SMS are sent to the SIM of the GSM modem. A comprehensive system for managing and finding
• GSM network is used for transmission of messages essential and everyday objects relying on mobile phones as
from the mobile station to the GSM modem. omnipresent object-sensing devices is presented. Significant
• User interface consists of cell phones, PDA and so effort was spent on modeling and testing the system for
on. They are used query about the object by sending detecting objects under various circumstances. In all the
SMS to the GSM modem via the network. experiments, the results are encouraging but due to the
constraints of cost, implementation was not done on large
VII. CONSTRAINTS
scale basis. Even though the system provides a relatively
The constraints that limit the design of the system are: less accurate positioning for moving objects, but the total
• Same Frequency: If two or more transmitters are overhead for distributing an object search query remains
programmed to operate at the same frequency, then acceptably low. This does not change the basic fact that the
it is not possible to run them simultaneously. The objects out of sensing region will not be detected. For
transmitter closer to the receiver will be detected. objects within the sensing region, such a system is feasible.
• Range: The range of detection may vary from a few
meters to several kilometers depending on the REFERENCES
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