Chicken Tracking with QB
Here's my latest cause for Quick Base celebration: A while back I made a Quick Base app for tracking my flock of chickens and supply inventory, but just incorporated RFID scanning to help move towa...
Forum Discussion
Steve,
I have been working with RFID for 25+ years (even before it was cool) and Trinity develops RFID and barcode scanning solutions in Quick Base for our clients.
I love your ingenuity and skunk works for doing this for chicken and egg tracking and your focus on keeping it inexpensive. A few comments:
1. Tracking the time in a coop for a chicken can be done but requires multiple readers. The RFID tag readers need to be offset so one reader reads the tag and then the next reader reads the tag. The two timestamps then determines direction. Then you can calculate when a chicken enters a coop and when they leave. The tag readers you are using now probably do not have the read distance necessary to do this, you will need something more powerful. And no, for others reading this, a more powerful RFID tag reader will not harm the chicken or the eggs.
As a note for others reading this, tracking direction using RFID tags can be done other ways with just a single reader. Every train railcar is outfitted with two RFID tags at both ends of the railcar. As the train goes by a RFID reader each tag gets read and depending on what tag gets read first determines direction.
2. Geofencing can work if your coops are far enough apart for differentiation. Geofencing typically uses GPS readings to determine the current location of an item. Typically this is done using Latitude / Longitude and the resolution for this is about 30 feet at best.
You can deploy other types of equipment that does not use GPS tracking like Bluetooth or other technologies, but resolution will always be an issue depending on how far the coops are apart. Plus, this will greatly increase the cost and size of what the chickens need to wear for tracking each one. They will not be happy.
3. You may have already figured this out, but when reading a tag you will always get multiple reads at the same time (milliseconds apart) and you will need to filter them down to a single read for that point in time. Some RFID tag readers already account for the software that comes with them but if not, you have to do that programatically so you get 1 read per time block (e.g 5 seconds).
Looking forward to more about this over time!
------------------------------
Scott Burday, Trinity
------------------------------
I have been working with RFID for 25+ years (even before it was cool) and Trinity develops RFID and barcode scanning solutions in Quick Base for our clients.
I love your ingenuity and skunk works for doing this for chicken and egg tracking and your focus on keeping it inexpensive. A few comments:
1. Tracking the time in a coop for a chicken can be done but requires multiple readers. The RFID tag readers need to be offset so one reader reads the tag and then the next reader reads the tag. The two timestamps then determines direction. Then you can calculate when a chicken enters a coop and when they leave. The tag readers you are using now probably do not have the read distance necessary to do this, you will need something more powerful. And no, for others reading this, a more powerful RFID tag reader will not harm the chicken or the eggs.
As a note for others reading this, tracking direction using RFID tags can be done other ways with just a single reader. Every train railcar is outfitted with two RFID tags at both ends of the railcar. As the train goes by a RFID reader each tag gets read and depending on what tag gets read first determines direction.
2. Geofencing can work if your coops are far enough apart for differentiation. Geofencing typically uses GPS readings to determine the current location of an item. Typically this is done using Latitude / Longitude and the resolution for this is about 30 feet at best.
You can deploy other types of equipment that does not use GPS tracking like Bluetooth or other technologies, but resolution will always be an issue depending on how far the coops are apart. Plus, this will greatly increase the cost and size of what the chickens need to wear for tracking each one. They will not be happy.
3. You may have already figured this out, but when reading a tag you will always get multiple reads at the same time (milliseconds apart) and you will need to filter them down to a single read for that point in time. Some RFID tag readers already account for the software that comes with them but if not, you have to do that programatically so you get 1 read per time block (e.g 5 seconds).
Looking forward to more about this over time!
------------------------------
Scott Burday, Trinity
------------------------------
- Hey Scott,
That's some great insight. I'll probably be embarking on the RFID aspect of my coop soon.
Here's the app so far:
I can't wait to report back on how it's going. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise!
Best,
------------------------------
Maria Peralta
Quick Base
Cambridge MA
------------------------------
