Open 2.4GHz RFID

OpenBeacon is a free design for an active RFID device which operates in the 2.4GHz ISM band. The device contains a unique serial number, but may have other information. OpenBeacon is designed as a transceiver device and therefore both transmits and receives radio waves. The intention of this project is to offer a wide range of use cases such as visitor or item tracking and wireless remote control with a free self-contained and low-cost RFID design.

Hardware

CCC-Sputnik Tag v0.2
Updated EasyReader with PoE

OpenBeacon readers come in two flavours: The OpenBeacon USB version with GPL'ed firmware and the network based OpenBeacon Ethernet reader with full Power-over-Ethernet 802.3af support and three 10/100 MBit switch ports.

 

The OpenBeacon Tag hardware design is based on a PCB antenna connected to a Nordic Semiconductors 2.4GHz RF Chip (NRF24L01) and is controlled via a microcontroller (MicroChip PIC16F684). The 8-Bit RISC CPU with special low-power features provides the opportunity to implement a very sleek and power saving transmitting routine at minimal costs. The device is powered with one CR2032 coin cell and is expected to run for up to several months without battery changing. The OpenBeacon design offers an additional watch quartz for better time and delay reliability to support anticollosion and meshing protocols. A LED output, a push button and an optional buzzer interface is provided for interaction purposes.

 

The transmitting range of the OpenBeacon device depends on local conditions and is tested indoor within 25 meters through two dry walls or up to 80 meters under optimal line-of-sight conditions. Further informations about the transmitting range and power consumption will be gathered with our new CCC-Sputnik design in the next use cases.

 

For current uses of the OpenBeacon, the device signals can be received with a Ethernet based RFID reader base station designed by Bitmanufaktur IT-Solutions in Berlin, Germany. The current design provides three 10/100 ethernet port (switched) and can be powered over Ethernet (fully IEEE 802.3af compliant). This base station can not be published under a free license due to the implementation of several close source development for the IP2022 network CPU from Ubicom.

 

The next step would be to change the current CPU into an ARM based microcontroler with USB connection and the possibility to use GNU C/C++ compilers for programming issues. This does not hurt too much, because with at least two tags a communication link without the need for base stations can be already implemented.

License

The hardware design has been released under a CC attribution share-alike license, the firmware and drivers have been released under GNU/GPL. You will find both at our download page. There is also a public OpenBeacon Wiki, where your participation is welcomed.

 

Design and SDK are available under non-open license types upon request.

Team

The OpenBeacon.org project was started by Milosch Meriac, Harald Welte and Brita Meriac. Our team has great interest and several expertises in RFID technologies and has also initiated the project OpenPCD.org.