**Article 1** **Student Vehicle Identification Using Near Field Communication Technology** Nora Yanti Che Jan\*, Mohd Nasharuddin Muhammad Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences Universiti Teknologi MARA Perlis Branch, Malaysia , *Abstract* *The purpose of this project is to develop a mobile application using NFC technology in order to assist security officers of Unit Keselamatan in UiTM Perlis branch. The main objective of the developed mobile application is to detect fake and stolen student vehicle stickers. Prior the development of the mobile application, security officers have no specific technique in detecting fake and stolen student vehicle stickers. Actions were only taken once complaints are received from the victims. NFC as defined by Vasquez-Briseno, Hirata et al. (2012) is a limited range high frequency wireless communication technology that allows the transfer of data among devices at distances lower than 10cm. NFC technology is a specialized subset within the family of RFID technology. The mobile application which is designed based on Automatic Identification Data Capture (AIDC) was later evaluated by ten security officers on its usability through questionnaire. Questions from the questionnaire are designed to evaluate several aspects including compatibility, content, navigation, interface design and general feedback. The results show that the officers are happy the developed mobile application as the application offers more than identifying stolen and fake vehicle stickers.* *Keywords: NFC, RFID, mobile application, wireless communication technology* **Introduction** Each student in UiTM Perlis Branch that wishes to bring his/her own vehicle is required to register the vehicle with Unit Keselamatan of UiTM Perlis Branch. Once the registration process is completed, the student will be issued with a sticker and this sticker must be displayed at the vehicle. Unlike staffs of UiTM Perlis Branch where their stickers are red in color, students’ stickers are purple. However, the issued plastic stickers do not have any latest security feature. Each sticker only has its serial number; printed on it and vehicle registration number which is written on its surface manually by the officers of Unit Keselamatan using marker pens. Besides the issue of faded handwritten vehicle registration number on the stickers over the time, stickers are always got stolen and forged by other unauthorized vehicles’ owners. Unfortunately, the security officers cannot detect the stolen and forged stickers during rounds. This problem only comes to surface when the owner of the stolen or forged sticker lodges a report. As an alternative, this project is proposing to replace the current plastic-no-safety-feature sticker with a sticker that is equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) tag. This NFC tag is capable of storing details about the owner of the vehicle, such as his/her name, course enrolled and contact number. Once the stickers are equipped with NFC tags, officers of Unit Keselamatan can easily use their own NFC-equipped smartphone to read data on the NFC tag during their rounds. These NFC-equipped smartphones are also required to be installed with the developed mobile application from this project. The developed mobile application is known as UiTMNFC. UiTMNFC offers more than just reading NFC tag. It also offers functions such as to write to the tag, to erase data from the tag as well as report where the officers can record some points as reference to assist them in writing reports, once they are back to the office after rounds. NFC technology were chosen among the other AIDC techniques such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Quick Response Code (QR Code) due to the following reasons: (1) simplicity ; where transactions are run automatically, simply be touching a NFC reader, smartphone or an NFC tag [Madlmayr, Langer, Kantner, & Scharinger, 2008](#_ENREF_8)(), (2) higher security when compared to RFID and Bluetooth. According to [Yaqub et al. (2012](#_ENREF_20)), due to the short range communication exist so fast that it becomes more difficult for hackers to hack the communication, and (3) safer data exchange since it is working through electromagnetic field induction, thus it is created for simple and safe data exchange directly among two devices [Steffen, Preißinger, Schöllermann, Müller, & Schnabel, 2010](#_ENREF_15)(). There are two objectives to be achieved by this project: (1) to develop a mobile application using NFC technology to assist the officers of Unit Keselamatan in UiTM Perlis Branch in detecting stolen and forged vehicle stickers and (2) to evaluate the usability of the developed mobile application. **Construction** Two software are used in developing the mobile application; (1) Android Studio and (2) Adobe Photoshop CS6. Android Studio provides tools to build, test and debug the application, whereas Adobe Photoshop is used in create banners and logos as well as in pictures editing. All images created or edited in Adobe Photoshop are saved in .PNG format. Then, the image or pictures are imported to Android Studio. Development of UiTMNFC started with sketches of the interfaces on papers. Figure 1 and Figure 2 below are the early sketches for the UiTMNFC main homepage and its “Report” page respectively. ![20150531\_204639.jpg](90-1-212-1-6-20181009_media/media/image1.jpeg) Figure 1: Sketch of the main homepage ![20150531\_204709.jpg](90-1-212-1-6-20181009_media/media/image2.jpeg) Figure 2: Sketch of the “Report” page Figure 3 and Figure 4 below show the final interface design of UiTMNFC. Figure 3 shows the homepage of the UiTMNFC. In the homepage, user is able to choose the operation he/she wishes to use. It can either be Read, Write, Erase or Report. Figure 4 shows the interface of a page called “Report”. This page allows the officers to jot down all the required details of the offences so that later the officers may use the recorded details to write their reports after rounds. | ![MAINMENU.jpg](90-1-212-1-6-20181009_media/media/image3.jpeg) | ![](90-1-212-1-6-20181009_media/media/image4.png) | | -------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | | Figure 3: The homepage | Figure 4: The “Report” page | **Findings and Discussion** Once the mobile application is ready with all the features it supposed to have, usability testing was done. Ten officers from the Unit Keselamatan of UiTM Perlis Branch have been selected to answer all the questions listed in the questionnaires. The questionnaires are divided into five sections; (1) compatibility, (2) content, (3) navigation, (4) interface design and (5) generals feedbacks. Each section consists of a few numbers of questions and each question is answered with score ranging from 1 to 5. Analysis performed shows that: (1) the application is only compatible with smartphones with built-in NFC capability and the layout of the developed application fits well with the smartphone screen, (2) the overall contents of the UiTMNFC are useful and suitable with the tasks of the officers of Unit Keselamatan and all features provided are working as expected, however some of respondents suggested that function “Report” should include small database to make data operation more efficient and faster, (3) all the buttons and menus are working and it is easy to navigate from one screen to the other, (4) the interface of the developed application is simple, attractive and appropriate and (5) the application is user-friendly enough to be used in performing the officers’ daily tasks. **Conclusion and Recommendation** The developed mobile application; UiTMNFC has successfully assist the officers from Unit Keselamatan of UiTM Perlis Branch in detecting fake and stolen students’ vehicle stickers. UiTMNFC also help the officers by providing all the necessary details in writing reports at the office after the rounds. However, there are several areas for improvement to the developed mobile application; (1) **the application does not have a structured database like SQLite. Reports recorded by the officers are only saved on internal storage of the smartphone, in a text file format. This can cause an inconvenient when the officers want to view the recorded reports and (2) records written on NFC tag is currently stored in one type of NDEF record which is TextRecord, whereas NFC tag should be capable to storing multiple NDEF records.** | | | | | | | | | | | | **References** Madlmayr, G., Langer, J., Kantner, C., & Scharinger, J. (2008). NFC devices: Security and privacy. Paper presented at the Availability, Reliability and Security, 2008. ARES 08. Third International Conference. Steffen, R., Preißinger, J., Schöllermann, T., Müller, A., & Schnabel, I. (2010). Near field communication (NFC) in an automotive environment. Paper presented at the International Workshop on Near Field Communication. Vazquez-Briseno, M., Hirata, F. I., de Dios Sanchez-Lopez, J., Jimenez-Garcia, E., Navarro-Cota, C., & Nieto-Hipolito, J. I. (2012). Using RFID/NFC and QR-Code in Mobile Phones to Link the Physical and the Digital World. Interactive Multimedia. Dr. Ioannis Deliyannis (Ed.) InTech, 219-242. Yaqub, M. U., Shaikh, U. A., & Mohandes, D. M. (2012). Near Field Communication, its application and implementation in KSA. 2012.