Internet of Things Chess board - Development of RFID chess piece detection running on the newest generation AVR microcontrollers.

Abstract

When radio frequency identification (RFID) was first introduced, it was predicted to change the world, much like the Internet of Things (IoT) has been these last few years. Even though the adoption of RFID was slower than it was predicted to be, much like IoT can seem to be, the industry is continuously finding new ways to uses the two technologies.

By designing a chessboard that use both technologies we have shown a way to put RFID on the IoT network. A minimal BOM RFID solution is presented, compatible with the EM4100 protocol, running on 125 kHz.

The approach of using RFID to detect pieces on a board can be implemented in all games that have a similar form-factor, such as scrabble, monopoly, checkers. In fact, any flat surface that has defined areas of interest can take use of this implementation.