Peer Reviewed Online International Journal Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2014 1

Touch Driven Interaction using an NFC

and Bluetooth Enabled Smartphone

K Mukambika

Dept of Electronics and Communication Engineering

AMC Engineering College

Bangalore, India

nandu.deepu123@gmail.com

S.K Veena

Dept of Electronics and Communication Engineering

AMC Engineering College

Bangalore, India

veena.sk123@gmail.com

Abstract

The Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging

wireless technology that is designed to facilitate secure,

short-range communication between electronic devices

such as mobile phones, personal data assistants (PDAs),

computers and payment terminals. In order to make two

devices communicate, bring them together or make them

touch. This will engage the wireless interface of the two de-

vices and configure them to link up in a peer-to-peer net-

work. Once the device is linked up using NFC, they can con-

tinue communication using long range and faster protocols

such as Bluetooth or wireless Internet (Wi-Fi).

The electronic device can be controlled through the An-

droid mobile by using NFC technology. The user has to

show the Android mobile phone which is NFC enabled to the

NFC Card. The NFC facilitates us to read or write the NFC

tags and hence tags can be defined accordingly.

Keywords

NFC; smart environment; mobile interaction

Introduction

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a technology for

contactless short-range communication. Based on the Radio

Frequency Identification (RFID), it uses magnetic field in-

duction to enable communication between electronic devic-

es. The number of short-range applications for NFC technol-

ogy is growing continuously, appearing in all areas of life.

Especially the use in conjunction with mobile phones offers

great opportunities. One of the main goals of NFC technolo-

gy has been to make the benefits of short-range contactless

communications available to consumers globally. The exist-

ing radio frequency (RF) technology base has so far been

driven by various business needs, such as logistics and

item tracking. While the technology behind NFC is found

in existing applications, there has been a shift in focus —

most notably, in how the technology is used and what it of-

fers to consumers. With just a point or a touch, NFC enables

effortless use of the devices and gadgets we use daily. Here

are some examples of what a user can do with an NFC mo-

bile phone in an NFC-enabled environment:

• Download music or video from a smart poster.

• Exchange business cards with another phone.

• Pay bus or train fare.

• Pair two Bluetooth devices.

Touch Driven Interaction

To address these challenges outlined above, touch-

driven interaction is introduced between physical space and

cyberspace with NFC. The concept of touch-driven interac-

tion is that events are triggered by touching smartphone with

devices, and then translated into information flow in cyber-

space, which in turn reflected by corresponding activity in

physical space.

A. Physical Space

Physical space is the abstraction of our living environ-

ment, including humans, devices, etc. Human interactions

with physical space, such as touching and moving, are con-

sidered natural and intuitive since these gestures express our

intent directly. However, interactions with digital devices,

such as smart phones and TVs, usually require specialized

controllers and instructions. Some devices provide buttons

Peer Reviewed Online International Journal Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2014 2

and dashboards for operation and instruction, while others

don’t even have a control panel, but instead relying on an-

other device to setup and configure. These interactions re-

quire a training process, and may be difficult and confusing

for elder users.

Therefore, we propose touch-driven interaction with

digital devices, trying to interpret user intent from the touch

action, and translate it into media activity without explicitly

instruction and control. In order to detect touch events, de-

vices are attached with NFC tags, which contains the device

descriptions; a NFC enabled smartphone is used as an active

scanner, which will detect tags in its range, and trigger an

interaction. With touch-driven interaction, a digital frame

can be setup via a touch after selecting a photo on the phone,

and videos and music can be streamed from phone to TV or

stereo by touching the device done manually.

Figure 1. Touch driven interaction between Physical

space & cyberspace

B. Cyberspace

Cyberspace is defined more by the media resources and

social networks rather than its technical implementation. In

cyberspace, individuals can interact, exchange ideas, share

information, provide social support, conduct business, direct

actions, create artistic media, play games, engage in political

discussion, and so on. By immersing computational systems

into physical space, cyberspace is becoming increasingly

ubiquitous.

Media resources are people’s digital assets in cyber-

space, including music, photos, videos, as well as personal

profiles and contacts. These resources are stored in nodes,

which are the digital representations of physical devices in

cyberspace. Nodes are then inter-connected by networks, as

illustrated in Figure 1. Networks provide elastic platforms

for media resources to be shared among nodes, resulting in

the flow of information. Information flow is an abstraction in

cyberspace, and can be reflected in cyberspace by media

activities between devices.

C. Touch-driven Interaction

As illustrated in Figure 1, the touch-driven interaction is

triggered by a touch event, then translated into information

flow, and finally reflected as activity on physical space.

1) Touch Event:

We use NFC technology to detect and interpret touch

events between smartphone and devices. First, we store de-

vice descriptions such as device type and name in NFC tags,

and attach these tags to the corresponding devices. Second,

an NFC enabled smartphone is used as a scanner to detect

tags within its range. When a touch event occurs, the

smartphone detects the tag, and read the device description

in a short time. Finally, some user context is collected at the

time the event occurs, such as the activity on the phone, the

user input, and the environmental parameter from sensors,

etc. With all the information, a touch event can be used to

infer the user intent precisely.

2) Information Flow:

The touch event is handled by the smartphone, and trans-

lated into information flow in cyberspace. First, we locate

the node in the network representing the device according to

the device description read from the NFC tag. The node rep-

resenting the phone is regarded as the pivot node holding the

user’s most media resources, thus we don’t need to explicitly

address it. Second, we determine the media resources to be

shared between the phone and the device. An intuitive ap-

proach is to use the currently accessed media on the phone.

For instance, the user intent of touching the phone with a

stereo while playing music is most likely to play the music

on the stereo. If no media is being accessed on the phone,

however, a list of available media can be filtered out based

on the device description, or from user selection explicitly.

Finally, we share the selected media between the nodes rep-

resenting the phone and the device respectively, making an

information flow in the network.

3) Media Activity:

Information flow is reflected in physical space as media

activity, which is participated by both the phone and the

device. Some activities uni-directional, such as streaming

Peer Reviewed Online International Journal Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2014 3

video from the phone to TV, while some activities are bi-

directional, such as exchanging social information between

phones. These activities represent the user intent when they

perform the corresponding touch actions, giving them a nat-

ural and intuitive interaction experience.

Working Principle

The working principle of this project is based on the easy

read and writes capabilities of NFC TAGS. Different infor-

mation’s can be stored on different NFC tags by simply pro-

gramming or writing them. Now when any NFC tag is

touched, tag with a NFC enabled phone it will be read easily

by the phone. Now the phone can transmit a coded signal to

a control system using the Bluetooth transmission module.

The Bluetooth module at the controller circuit end will re-

ceive the data and send it to the microcontroller. The micro-

controller control unit will be connected to different loads of

home or office or whatever the place you want to atomize.

The controller will read the information of the NFC tags

send by Bluetooth and analyze which command is to be exe-

cuted. It will then control the different loads accordingly.

Figure 2. Block Diagram

Operating Modes of NFC

NFC is a proximity coupling technology closely linked

to the standard of proximity smart cards.

1. Peer-To-Peer Mode (NFC):-

This mode is the classic NFC mode, allowing data con-

nection for up to 424kb/sec.

Figure 3. Peer-To-Peer Mode (NFC)

2. Reader/Writer Mode (PCD):-

NFC devices can be used as a reader/writer for tags and

smart cards. In this case the NFC device acts as an initiator

and the passive tag is the target. In reader/writer mode data

rates of 106 Kbit/sec are possible.

Figure 4. Reader/Writer Mode (PCD)

3. Tag Emulation Mode (PICC):-

In this mode the NFC device emulates an ISO 14443

smart card or a smart card chip integrated in the mobile de-

vices is connected to the antenna of the NFC module.

Figure 5. Tag Emulation Mode (PICC)

NFC operates in the standard, globally available

13.56MHz frequency band. Possible supported data transfer

rates are 106, 212 and 424 kbps and there is potential for

higher data rates. The technology has been designed for

communications up to a distance of 20 cm, but typically it is

used within less than 10 cm. This short range is not a disad-

vantage, since it aggravates eavesdropping. This is an ad-

vantage of NFC technology as already existing reader infra-

structures do not need to be replaced. The smart card chip

used for tag emulation is also referred to as secure element.

Peer Reviewed Online International Journal Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2014 4

Applications

• Mobile payment.

• Authentication, access control.

• Data transfer between different NFC-units.

• ‘Unlock’ & ‘Activate’ other service.

• Access to Digital Information.

• Item level tagging.

Conclusion

A touch-driven interaction system is presented between

cyberspace and physical space via an NFC-enabled

Smartphone. Three applications are demonstrated named

Touch Connect, Touch Listen, and Touch Watch, to show

how the NFC-based interaction can be used in smart home

environment to enable convenient and intuitive interaction

with home appliances.

Acknowledgement

K Mukambika and Veena S.K are thankful to IJIR Journal

for the support to publish this research document.

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Biographies

K MUKAMBIKA received her

B.E. degree in Electronics and

Communication Engineering from

the National Institute of Engineer-

ing under VTU University, Mysore,

Karnataka, in 2012, and currently

doing her M.Tech degree in Elec-

tronics and Communication Engi-

neering from the AMC engineering

college under VTU University Ban-

galore, Karnataka.

She may be reached at nandu.deepu123@gmail.com.

S.K VEENA received her B.E. de-

gree in Electronics & Communication

Engineering from the Vtu University,

Karnataka in 2009, the M.Tech de-

gree in Electronics & Communication

Engineering from the Vtu University,

Karnataka in 2012. Currently, she is

an assistant Professor of Electronics

and Communication Engineering at

AMC Engineering College.

She may be reached at veena.sk123@gmail.com.