Introduction

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HID’s UDor V2 Cabin is not a simple RFID reader but a station including automation (Automatic doors, door sensors, UHF field motion system, obstacle detector, push button, leds…). Front and back automatic doors enable an ergonomic operation (no pull / just push the cage).

In order to facilitate the driving of U-Door V2 by an external Application, we have developed the HID U-Door standalone Application that enable

• to recover tag data as well as other status messages as TCP sockets over the network (or as serial frames on a serial port)

• to start reading cycle either locally by the operator or by simple ASCII commands  issued by external software

The HID UDoor Standalone Application is detailed in the UDoor User Guide (Chapter 7).

It can be installed on any computer of the network (possibly as a background task) and requires Java JRE environment >=7 (32 bits).

You can develop your Host Application in any language : the interface with HID’s UDoor Standalone App is limited to ASCII characters sent (optional) and messages received as TCP sockets.

Overview

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Prerequisites

Java Runtime Environment v7.0 minimum (32 bits - currently 64bits version is not supported)

We recommand to add the path for java file in the environment variable (for example : exe: C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre)

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Installation from exe

You can now launch the standalone software from the START menu after installing.

Launching from a terminal

You can use this command for example :

Autostart function

Once installed, the Standalone software should be executed at each Windows boot.

We can verify it by checking that the software is present in msconfig.exe tab.

If you are using a newer version of Windows (10 or 11), the startup applications will be available in the Task Manager - Startup Apps.

Basic Settings

u-Door type :

• AUTO (automatical U-Door V2)

• MANUEL (U-Door Lite)

ID Controller :

• Only used for automatical u-Door. It is the IP address of the automaton, the Moxa board.

RFID Reader :

• For both types of cabins, you indicate the IP address of the RFID reader.

To remotely control standalone SW from your Host Application, ensure that 'Connect in background when launched' is selected in 'Settings Window'

Operation Settings

RFID Settings

Transmit power allows you to adjust the power of the antennas.

Communication Settings

Allow you to choose the kind of communication. Basically, how the Standalone App will send the reading results and other messages.

Process

There is a Connect button to initialize the connection between the software and the hardware. Then, you can start the reading process by clicking on start processing and stop it by clicking on stop processing.

To remotely control standalone SW from your own app, ensure that 'Connect in background when launched' is selected in 'Settings Window'

Schematic of UDoor Lite cycle with UDoor Standalone App

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Exemples of possible implementations

More information about the Messages Published

Upon successful connection :

Upon connection error:

Please note that SW will automatically attempt to reconnect until hardware is reachable again.

Upon connection loss :

Please note that SW will automatically attempt to reconnect until hardware is reachable again.

After starting a cycle by sending 'S\r\n' over serial or ethernet :

When obstacle is detected by proximity sensors :

Before operating doors, Standalone SW will check for obstacles.

When an obstacle is detected, the following message is sent

Standalone SW will wait until the obstacle is removed then continue the ongoing read cycle and send the following message

When doors fail to open/close :

If proximity sensors do not detect any obstacle, but still doors fail to open/close, standalone SW will send the following message.

In such a case, any ongoing read operation is aborted.

Questions and Answers

Q1 : HID Standalone Application sends messages mostly ended by '\r\n', but sometimes 1 message comes without this ending, so it can be considered like incomplete message. In other words : Standalone Application may send messages in 2 steps, first it sends for example 'INFO:PROCESSING' and than '\r\n', so I receive this separately in two readings

A1 : yes messages may be fragmented. The algorithm must accumulate all the characters received, even if they are in several fragments, until the crlf is received. At this point, it parses said buffer.

Q2 : What time format is exactly used for message: ITEM_READ:2020-10-11T14:37:10.182+0200:300ED89F3350007FE26FAB89? I'm applying DateTime.TryParse method.

A2 :  you must keep only the "2017-10-11T14: 37: 10.182 + 0200". It gives date, time to millisecond and time zone. We do not know if it can be split all at once in java.

Q3 : If I newly connect to Standalone Application, how can I get the current state of cabin (if Standalone Application is connected to cabin and prepared to read). So I don't know if I can send 'S\r\n' to start reading of tags.

A3 :

• If your host software communicates on TCP socket, the socket is only opened by standalone application only if the cabin is connected. So if it can connect it is good

• if your software communicates in serial RS232 method 3.1 does not work.

• in both cases you send the S character to see if the cabin responds or not (certainly with the drawback of launching a cycle for nothing)

• there is no other method for querying the standalone on the condition of the cabin.

How to test and debug your Host Application if you have no UDoor

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Abtract of UDoor User Guide (Chapter 7 concerning Standalone Application)