Sponsor: Indago Devices
Mentor(s):
W. Shepherd Pitts wspitts2@ncsu.edu
Background of Company:
Indigo was founded by members of Paul Franzon’s research group to commercialize research. Specifically, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Near-Field Communication (NFC) are the topic of the licensed technology from NCSU. This research uses a novel method to operate digital electronic circuits directly off of AC voltage sources such as radio waves received by an antenna. This greatly simplifies the architecture of both RFID and NFC systems allowing them to be built in the most advanced process nodes using standard cells.
Project Background and Need:
Currently, some of the casino’s employ RFID enabled casino chips as a theft deterrent system. In 2011 the Belagio thwarted a theft of approximately 1.5M in chips. The casino chips used by Bellagio are typical of the industry and while they have special markings, much as security features on currency, the embedded RFID tags not only allow casinos to validate authenticity but allows them to track their every movement on the casino floor. For security reasons, if a chip is stolen, it’s ID can be associated with the theft in casino databases, preventing it from being redeemed for cash. When tracking the chip on the floor they can also measure the activity of a table, verifying dealers handling of the chips, and performing big data analysis to improve the players experience as well as their bottom line. While these RFID chips are not a new concept, Indago’s price point and dual RFID/NFC system creating an IoT chip is. Indago would like to return some of the control to the players by adding dual RFID and NFC to a poker chip. This way players can load their own casino chips into a digital wallet and track/secure their own assets on the casino floor. Once a chip is uniquely tethered to a digital wallet, the user doesn’t have to worry about losing chips or cashing out with the casino windows. Oh, and instead of costing $2.50/chip indago’s technology enables an IoT chip for mere pennies.
Problem Description/requirements (List of high-level functionality you expect to see in the end product):
The project would start off using commercial off the shelf open source hardware called WISP. WISP is a publicly available RFID and NFC tag that utilizes a low power Texas Instruments chipset with a builtin sub 1GHz RF front end. The researchers at the University of Washington have designed several iterations of this device that can be powered as a passive RFID (requires no battery) and thus makes a great starting point for the hardware.
The problem, this hardware is paired with an expensive and no longer available RFID gateway. It is desired that the team modify, build, and deploy a recent low cost, open source UHF RFID reader platform called “S.U.R.F.E.R.”. This hardware is based on a software defined radio (SDR) creating a low cost RFID Reader that can be further developed into an access point for the IoT Casino Chip project. Another portion of the project would be interfacing the NFC-WISP with a smartphone by creating a digital wallet. There are a plethora of options for features that could be enabled as well as for quickly prototyping the functionality of the system.
There is abundant hardware for this project to facilitate COVID-19 social distancing requirements as needed.
Required Skills / Desired Competencies (in order of importance):
Embedded hardware and programming
Programming experience
Mobile app development
Analog circuit design
Wireless communications
PCB design and layout (or a desire to learn)
How often and how would you be available to meet/chat with the team (Zoom, Hangout, Skype, Phone)?
Weekly if needed and Zoom
Will the students be required to sign any of the following before they start with the project? NDA / CDA / IP assignment / IP protection form
NDA, IP assignment agreement and IP protection form will all need to be signed.
All assignments are in this project's subpages.
Drive Folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1otXjQPaHXo5LBsyR_vC8kf4CuMmpUwkF
System Architecture Diagrams: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ae-HjHOi7viut5BFUK3ojgm85RGsrse5bVwdOi4hlyo/edit?usp=sharing