RFID data processing in a real-time monitoring system for marathons

Abstract

In all marathon events, an organizer needs to determine the winners. However, this is a complicated process since such events have many participants and starting points within a limited space. Under such condition, runners cannot start concurrently and thus those who cross the finish line first are not always the winners. To judge the top runners with accuracy and fairness, an organizer needs to acquire net times that rank participants. The net time is the difference between a runner’s time recorded at the finish line and his/her time recorded at the start. This must be calculated for each runner. Currently, RFID technology is widely used to record times and determine the performance of runners in several marathon events. However, most RFID-based solutions for marathons are commercially available and licensed on a yearly basis. The cost of a commercial product can be as high as 2,000,000 baht. This study presents an implementation of RFID technology for a marathon organizer to determine the winners by recording the times at the check in point, the starting point, the checkpoints, and the finish point. Furthermore, the developed system also reports the results of the marathon in real-time via a web application that can be viewed on any online electronic device. The cost of the proposed solution is estimated to be about 200,000 baht. It can reduce the processing time from one hour to just five minutes, which is about one-tenth that of a commercial product.