A Design of Packages Tracking System Based on Radio Frequency Identification

The traditional package tracking process depends on manual handling this requires time and effort, in addition to that this may lead to packages lost or misplaced. Shipping companies or package sender were unable to trace their packages in a realtime manner. The main objective of this paper is to overcome the above-mentioned difficulties and to provide real-time information for both customers and the packaging companies about their packages by effectively utilize new relevant technologies. The proposed packages tracking system is mainly based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for shipping train and consists of two main subsystems integrated together. The first subsystem is a wireless tracking system. In this sub-system each package labeled with a barcode and placed in a box with RFID tag identifier (ID) then the box is placed in the train's trailer. Each trailer has a wireless node that contains a microcontroller to receive and to store the boxes ID's. Then the trailer wireless node sends the stored ID's wirelessly to a wireless node located on each train stations via wireless module to update the system's database by the current location of the packages. The second subsystem is a web-based information system that collects and store data received from the first subsystem and provides this information to all authorized users. The simulation result shows that shipping employees and users can log on to the website using their accounts to trace their packages in a real-time which improve accuracy and helps the shipping companies to do their job effortlessly.