2

I'd like to read a playfield of RFID token equipped chess pieces. For cost and simplicity, I'd like to use ONE reader and many antennae.

I'm planning to purchase the following:

  • ArduinoMega; large enough to just let me program and debug without optimizing for space or speed
  • standard 8x8 chess board; size may be determined by coil diameter (see below)
  • standard 16 pc chess set
  • 16 RFID tokens of a given frequency; each with a different "value" or serial number that when glued to the bottom of the chess pieces would uniquely identify each piece to the system
  • 64 RFID coils (initially) designed for correct frequency of RFID tokens; mounted to bottom side of playfield
  • 1 RFID reader compatible with RFID frequency selected
  • some sort of multiplexor (or set of multiplexors) for the Arduino to step thru connecting all 64 of the coils for the playfield

My overall system design would be to connect the reader to each coil in turn via the multiplexor(s) and read the token found at each location of the playfield, if any. The Arduino would read the output of the RFID reader and step thru the various field positions, monitoring which chess piece was at which location.

Before I just buy all the parts and go for it, I'm wondering if anyone here has any initial advice or criteria to consider.

My specific questions are:

  1. Would one RFID freq set be better than another?

  2. How long should the Arduino have to "wait" at (row x col) position to read a token - if a token is even there - before trying to read the next one?

  3. Is it better to use one big multiplexor vs many small ones tied together? Why?

Part of this question was originally asked here: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/9255/rfid-antenna-array Moderators requested that the author start a new question instead of asking a new question in the replies of an existing question. But I can't find that they ever did. So, here we are.. :^)

Community
  • 1
  • 1
Mike Mushovic
  • 21
  • 4
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is mainly about the circuit design, and physical and electronics aspects of designing an RFID system. Consequently it would better fit http://electronics.stackexchange.com/ – Michael Roland Jun 24 '16 at 10:12
  • Did you developed this solution? How much was the cost of the setup ? I'm really interested. – Matteo Conta May 09 '17 at 07:08

1 Answers1

0

Your design is completely valid. Sometime ago, i play with RFID using arduino and found that RDM xxxx, using Wiegan standard, is very hard to code. The simple and working one is MFRC-522, mifare family. For easiest use on maintenance, you should uses writeable RFID card, so if one of chess your pieces is lost, you can easily replace it.

cepukom
  • 56
  • 1