Specifications

List of Figures
1.1 Penguins’ moulting season on Robben Island . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Penguin nest on Robben Island . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Penguins at SANCCOB showing steel identifier tags. . . . . . 6
2.1 Existing system: Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Existing system: close-up of the gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3 Existing system: Power supply and backup system . . . . . . . 11
4.1 Overview of proposed replacement system . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2 System overview: Logical connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.1 Popular Texas Instruments Series 2000 Antennas . . . . . . . 23
5.2 32mm glass encapsulated transponder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.3 64bit Read-Only transponder data format, from [1] . . . . . . 28
5.4 Overview of proposed microprocessor-based RFID reader . . . 32
5.5 RFID antenna driver circuitry for single ended output . . . . . 33
5.6 RFID antenna driver circuitry using push-pull output stage . . 34
5.7 RFID receiver circuit showing amplifier s tages and tuned circuit 36
5.8 Antenna field patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.9 Detection of penguins with various antennae. . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.10 RFID receiver decode state flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.11 CRC verification flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.12 FFT of the 134.2kHz transmitted waveform. . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.13 Received waveform from an RFID transponder . . . . . . . . . 52
6.1 Global timer flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
ix