FYP Project: RFID (Short Documentation)

Hardware:
RFID USB Starter Kit (more details on hardware/device click here; I'm using the ID-20 reader)

Operating System:
Mac OS X Lion 10.8.3

Setting up a RFID USB Starter Kit
1) Download and install driver here according to the OS you are using
2) Install guide here

Reading RFID Tags
1) Arduino software
- Download and install the software here
- Ensure that you have installed the FTDI driver correctly to be able to use the RFID USB Reader
- Plug-in the device
- Go to Arduino Software
- Go to Tools --> Serial Port and Select your device
- Scan the Tag!

OR

2) Java platform (more advanced, you can do more things with this. eg: storing to a database, etc)
- Set up RXTX Library. Download these files. (Please take note that I'm using Mac OS X. The set up is different for other operating systems. Please refer to the website I've stated at the end of this post. :D )
- Place these files into /Library/Java/Extensions
- Sample RFID Java Code

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import gnu.io.CommPortIdentifier; 
import gnu.io.SerialPort;
import gnu.io.SerialPortEvent; 
import gnu.io.SerialPortEventListener; 
import java.util.Enumeration;

public class SerialTest implements SerialPortEventListener {
 SerialPort serialPort;
        /** The port we're normally going to use. */
 private static final String PORT_NAMES[] = { 
   "/dev/tty.usbserial-A9007UX1", // Mac OS X
   "/dev/ttyUSB0", // Linux
   "COM3", // Windows
 };
 /**
 * A BufferedReader which will be fed by a InputStreamReader 
 * converting the bytes into characters 
 * making the displayed results codepage independent
 */
 private BufferedReader input;
 /** The output stream to the port */
 private OutputStream output;
 /** Milliseconds to block while waiting for port open */
 private static final int TIME_OUT = 2000;
 /** Default bits per second for COM port. */
 private static final int DATA_RATE = 9600;

 public void initialize() {
  CommPortIdentifier portId = null;
  Enumeration portEnum = CommPortIdentifier.getPortIdentifiers();

  //First, Find an instance of serial port as set in PORT_NAMES.
  while (portEnum.hasMoreElements()) {
   CommPortIdentifier currPortId = (CommPortIdentifier) portEnum.nextElement();
   for (String portName : PORT_NAMES) {
    if (currPortId.getName().equals(portName)) {
     portId = currPortId;
     break;
    }
   }
  }
  if (portId == null) {
   System.out.println("Could not find COM port.");
   return;
  }

  try {
   // open serial port, and use class name for the appName.
   serialPort = (SerialPort) portId.open(this.getClass().getName(),
     TIME_OUT);

   // set port parameters
   serialPort.setSerialPortParams(DATA_RATE,
     SerialPort.DATABITS_8,
     SerialPort.STOPBITS_1,
     SerialPort.PARITY_NONE);

   // open the streams
   input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(serialPort.getInputStream()));
   output = serialPort.getOutputStream();

   // add event listeners
   serialPort.addEventListener(this);
   serialPort.notifyOnDataAvailable(true);
  } catch (Exception e) {
   System.err.println(e.toString());
  }
 }

 /**
  * This should be called when you stop using the port.
  * This will prevent port locking on platforms like Linux.
  */
 public synchronized void close() {
  if (serialPort != null) {
   serialPort.removeEventListener();
   serialPort.close();
  }
 }

 /**
  * Handle an event on the serial port. Read the data and print it.
  */
 public synchronized void serialEvent(SerialPortEvent oEvent) {
  if (oEvent.getEventType() == SerialPortEvent.DATA_AVAILABLE) {
   try {
    String inputLine=input.readLine();
    System.out.println(inputLine);
   } catch (Exception e) {
    System.err.println(e.toString());
   }
  }
  // Ignore all the other eventTypes, but you should consider the other ones.
 }

 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
  SerialTest main = new SerialTest();
  main.initialize();
  Thread t=new Thread() {
   public void run() {
    //the following line will keep this app alive for 1000 seconds,
    //waiting for events to occur and responding to them (printing incoming messages to console).
    try {Thread.sleep(1000000);} catch (InterruptedException ie) {}
   }
  };
  t.start();
  System.out.println("Started");
 }
}

If you are using other OS, or you need more information, please refer to this website.