IoT based retailed shopping system using NFC

Abstract

In current retail shopping systems, one witnesses long queues at the counter primarily due to limited barcode scanners for product identification and billing system. This causes inconvenience to the customers as well as can be regarded as a waste of time. Furthermore, the barcode system is getting outdated due to memory constraints. In the present paper, the concept of an IoT based retail shopping system using NFC is proposed that is time-saving. It combines the concept of Near Field Communication (NFC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) with the Internet of Things (IoT). Software technologies like Atmel Studio, PHP, Eagle, Extreme Burner have also been employed in the project. In this system, each product will be assigned a near field communication (NFC) tag which consists of all the product information. Wireless techniques and electronic tag have been used for product identification. To access this information, NFC readers will be used which come inbuilt in all the new smartphones. This system would be mounted on the trolley so that the bill can be easily generated based on the products placed on the shopping cart, using an Internet of Things (IoT) framework. Design of a novel shopping cart equipped with NFC reader and wireless module is presented which serves as a connection between the cart and the server using IoT framework. The proposed design of cart consists of an LCD, RFID reader, and EEPROM. The payment can then be made either online or through cash. Thus there remains no requirement of manual intervention and with the introduction of NFC enabled smartphones, these processes can be made automated.