NFC based inventory control system for secure and efficient communication

2026-03-31

AI Summary

This study addresses the inherent limitations of traditional barcode-based inventory systems—particularly their vulnerabilities in security, durability, and reliability when identifying irregularly shaped or environmentally sensitive items such as frozen goods and apparel. To overcome these challenges, this work proposes and implements a novel retail inventory control system that systematically leverages passive Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The prototype integrates NFC tags with off-the-shelf NFC-enabled devices, such as smartphones, to automatically generate digital receipts through seamless interactions at checkout, thereby enhancing operational efficiency and transactional security. Deployed successfully in an electronics retail store, the system demonstrates NFC’s significant advantages in improving inventory management reliability, strengthening data security, and enriching the overall user experience.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Conversational Systems for Recommendation & Retrieval
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Neural Spike Coding

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: On-Device user modeling, personalization, and recommendation

Abstract

This paper brings up this idea of using Near Field Communication (NFC) for inventory control system instead of using traditional barcodes. NFC because of its high security, ease of use and efficiency can be very suitable for systems like inventory control. In traditional inventory control systems, each product has a barcode pasted on it, which is vulnerable to attacks as barcodes are open and have no security. Furthermore, barcodes are prone to damages and can be unreliable when pasted on different types of products e.g. hot and frozen products, circular shaped products and irregular shaped products like clothes etc. NFC on the other hand is very efficient, secure and reliable when it comes to short-range wireless communication. In this paper we will present our prototype for the inventory control system of an electronic store in which each product has a passive NFC tag pasted to it. When a customer buys a product the receipt of the product is generated using NFC between the NFC passive tag on the product and NFC enabled device (e.g. smart phone or reader) at the cash counter.

Problem

• inventory control
• barcode vulnerability
• NFC security
• product tagging
• wireless communication

Innovation

• NFC
• inventory control
• secure communication
• passive NFC tag
• barcode replacement