Have you ever used a key card to access an office building or hotel room? can you guess which technology it uses?
- NFC is a near-field wireless communication system where wireless communication is developed between 2 devices at a much shorter distance.
- NFC interaction is limited to an extremely short range we can also say that it is an evolution of RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) this is the technology we can see in car keys.
- It is a type of information shared between two devices wirelessly at a small distance.
- NFC allows the transmission of data between smart devices which are equipped with NFC. This is similar to RFID which can communicate up to four inches.
- The fast tag technology used in the toll booth comes under RFID technology.
- The Nexus S was the first Android device to include an NFC sensor.
NFC Technology
- Data transfer – The data is transferred using this technology through Bluetooth, Easy share, etc.
- Mobile payments – mobile payments are done using phone pay, google pay, etc.
- Quick pairing – wifi pairing or Bluetooth pairing of devices like speakers, headphones, etc.
- Public transport access, Gaming, and Home automation are fe other applications of NFC.
- An NFC tag is a small integrated circuit made of a copper coil and some amount of storage, the data can be read or written with the NFC devices. The nearness of the NFC device induces power in the tag and data transmission.
- The reader device uses its battery to generate an electromagnetic field, and the electromagnetic field, powers the tag brought near it. NFC tags are passive and have no power source. They borrow power from the device that reads the data. NFC tags are read-only types that can be rewritten, through electromagnetic induction.
How does NFC communication take place?
- An NFC sensor has a chip that consists of data and the data has to be read by the reader.
- NFC tag has data stored but doesn’t have the power of its own as it is the passive part, it gains the power from emf generated by reader chip.
- The NFC reader chip is the active part of the system, it reads or processes the information and then triggers a specific response. It provides power and sends NFC commands to the NFC tag.
- The NFC technology is frequently used in public transport, where users can pay using their NFC-enabled ticket or smartphone. In this example, the NFC reader chip would be embedded in the bus payment terminal, and the NFC passive tag would be in the ticket (or the smartphone) that receives and replies to the NFC commands sent by the terminal.
- There are three types of NFC chips: NFC readers, NFC tags, and NFC controller chips.