AdvanNet Manager

AdvanNet is a piece of software, which runs embedded in all Series 70 and 160 reader and derived systems. It controls the hardware and adds some high-level services including, but not limited to:

- REST API
- HTTPService
- MQTTService
- SQLService

The new design of Advannet Manager is available since Advannet v2.5.5.

AdvanNet Manager

An important AdvanNet module is AdvanNet Manager: a web-based application intended for testing and configuring the readers and systems:

We recommend closing the web application when you are done, to prevent the reader from having:

- Unnecessary open connections
- Any additional workload

How to access AdvanNet Manager

To access AdvanNet Manager, you will need to:

1. Connect to your device
2. Browse your device IP or hostname using a web browser

Sections

AdvanNet Manager is split into different sections to make the configuration process easier:

Home:
- - Dashboard (new): a summary of the current device status, so that you can diagnose any problem you may face.
  - Monitor: quickly confirm the tags being read, and read/write data on the tag memory (RF operation must be stopped)
Configuration:
- - RFID: configure the power, sensitivity, region, antennas and other RFID parameters
  - Read modes (new): change the read or device mode and configure it with ease.
  - Network & time: change your device IP, netmask, DNS or change the date, time and timezone.
  - Services: enable/disable and configure services such as the MQTT Service, or the SCloud service.
  - GPIO: discover which inputs are currently available and enable or disable the outputs. Test the speaker and buzzer.
  - Events & actions: configure and action when an event occurs. For instance, activate the speaker on TAG_ALARM events.
Setup testing:
- - Data analysis: open the data analysis tool and tune your device performance
Help:
- - Wiki (new): a direct link to AdvanNet Manager wiki (Internet required)
  - Support (new): quick access to our support platform (Internet required)

Dashboard

The greatest feature is the modular Dashboard page, which provides a full device's status summary. At a glance, you will be able to find the following information:

- Device info: IP, MAC, RF status, Internet availability, SCloud code
- SW and HW version: AdvanNet version, uptime, RF and MCU subsystem version
- Enabled services: list of currently enabled services (regardless of their configuration)

HW Status:
- - Device time and Uptime
  - Disk partition usage
  - Device memory usage
  - Sensors values (temp, voltage..)

This design allows you to diagnose the reader in search of problems such as:

- Status error
- No internet connection
- Disabled services
- No free space on the disk
- Unexpectedly high module temperatures
- Etc.

On the top-right of the screen you will find some buttons so that you can quickly:

- Refresh the dashboard
- Upgrade AdvanNet version
- Export any configuration: CSV, System logs, Services or Devices configuration
- Import Device or Services configuration
- Reset the device to factory defaults
- Reset the device data (CSV...)

Monitor

The monitor page allows you to quickly start/stop the RF operation and check out the TAGs currently being read on a modular table. You can sort the data to fit your needs, as well as hide/show unnecessary columns.

Once you have read some tags and stopped the RF operation, you can download the read data in a CSV file by clicking on the CSV button.

You will also find two useful counters on the top right of the screen:

- The Current can increase or decrease depending on the tags currently being read. It coincides with the number of rows in the table
- The Total can only increase and counts the unique tags read so far. When the RF is stopped and started again, it is reset.

Tag commissioning

AdvanReader is not intended for automated tag writing processes. In such cases, please consider using AdvanStation-100 or AdvanStation-200.

When using multiplexers, the reader needs more power to compensate for the attenuation caused by the multiplexer.

In order to commission a tag, please follow the steps below:

1. Start the RF operation
2. Read a tag
3. Stop the RF operation
4. Click on the EPC. A new window will show up.
5. Type the new EPC (5a), and, if necessary, the Access Password (5b).
6. Click on the Write EPC button.

Advanced tag operations

It is also possible to read data from the tag or write it. To do so, you will need to:

1. Start the RF operation
2. Read a tag
3. Stop the RF operation
4. Click on the EPC. A new window will show up.

Go to the Memory access tab
Provide, at least, the following information:
- Memory bank (6a)
- Offset (6b)
- Length values (6c)
- To write data, it is also required to specify the Data to be written field (6d)

1. Click on Read memory data (7a) to read data or Write memory data (7b) to write it.

Tag writing requires the tag to be placed close to the antenna, and in some cases, to adjust the Read and Write power on the RFID page.

Kill tag

To kill the tag is a procedure that discards the tag and makes it not readable anymore. It can be done by following these steps:

1. Start the RF operation
2. Read a tag
3. Stop the RF operation
4. Click on the EPC. A new window will show up.

Go to the Kill tag tab
1. Provide the Kill password
2. Click on the Kill tag button
3. Confirm the operation

Export session read tags to CSV

AdvanNet allows the user to export the tags read within a work session (between the start and stop operation) to a CSV file. To create the CSV file, please follow the steps below:

1. Start the RF operation
2. Read some tags
3. Stop the reader operation
4. Click on the CSV button

By default, there is a limit of 512 reads per EPC. In case you need to increase this limit, please visit the Change tag read limit section on the FAQ page

Read TID memory

Reading the TID memory is a straightforward procedure, but it requires fine-tuning as it cannot be automated and depends on the type of tag.

To do so, please follow the steps below:

1. Start the RF operation
2. Read a tag
3. Stop the RF operation
4. Click on the EPC. A new window will show up.

Go to the Memory access tab
Provide the following information:
1. - Memory bank: TID (6a)
  - Offset: we suggest starting by an Offset of 0 (6b)

- Length: we suggest starting by a Length of 4 (6c), and then increase it until an error appears. Then, try the last length it worked. If 4 does not work, start at length 3.
- Password (if needed) (6d)

1. Click on the Read memory data button. Read data will show up below

Read RESERVED memory

The RESERVED memory contains Access and Kill passwords:

- 0 - 31 bits: Acces password (2 words)
- 32 - 63 bits: Kill password (2 words)

To read the contents of the RESERVED memory, please follow the steps below:

1. Start the RF operation
2. Read a tag
3. Stop the RF operation
4. Click on the EPC. A new window will show up.

Go to the Memory access tab
Provide the following information:
1. - Memory bank: RESERVED (6a)
  - Offset: 0 (6b)

- Length: 4 (6c)
- Password (6d)

1. Click on the Read memory data button. Read data will show up below

RFID

The RFID section allows you to quickly configure the RFID parameters of your device, including the:

- Region
- Power/Sensitivity
- Session/Target
- EPCGen2 Protocol (advanced)
- Antennas: add or remove antennas manually, or download a template to upload the antennas in bulk.

In addition, you can export the device configuration by clicking on the Export button on the top-right of the screen

Any change will be applied automatically. Click on the Save button to save them across reboots.

Change the region

To change your reader's region, please follow the steps below:

1. Select the appropriate Region from the list
2. The changes will be automatically applied, but you need to click on Save if you want to save them across reboots.

Change the Session and Target

By default, all readers and systems are pre-configured to work in:

- Session 1 (S1)
- Target A (A)

Other useful combinations are:

- S0/AB

Using AdvanNet Manager it is very easy to change these EPCGen2 parameters:

1. Select the right Session and Target combination

The changes will be automatically applied, but you need to click on Save if you want to save them across reboots.

Please refer to What do target and session options mean? on the FAQ page page for further details.

Read modes

The Read modes section allows you to change the Device or Read mode, and configure it afterward.

The configuration has been reorganized in tabs for clarification.

Furthermore, it is possible to:

- Make the reader start the RF operation on boot, without human intervention: Start on boot
- Automatize periodic RF operation starts, to prevent the reader from being stopped by mistake: Keep always running

To enable these features, please toggle the switches on the top right of the screen:

Changes on Start on boot or Keep always running will be saved automatically, whereas any change on the Read mode configuration will be only applied, and you will need to click on the Save button to save the changes across reboots.

List of reading modes

Some of the reading modes are:

Start reading tags on boot

To configure the reader so it starts the RF operation right after booting and without any human intervention, you need to enable the option Start on boot:

1. Enable the option Start on boot. Changes will automatically be applied and saved.

Keep the reader always running

This feature makes sure the RF operation is started after being stopped for 5 minutes, no matter the reason. To enable or disable it follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Read modes section
2. Enable the option Keep always running. Changes will automatically applied and saved

In Sequential modes, this feature is not enough to ensure the device keeps doing inventories. For more information, please take a look at the following section.

Start reading automatically in Sequential mode

Sequential mode expects read commands to trigger inventories. When using AdvanNet Manager, the monitor tab issues those commands, giving us the false idea that the system is reading autonomously. For production systems, this is obviously not possible.

However, it is possible to configure the Sequential read mode to internally do those queries for you. To do so, please follow these steps:

1. Change the device mode to Sequential
2. Go to the General Settings tab
3. Enable the Read automatically option
4. Changes will be applied automatically. Click on Save to save them across reboots.

Configure the Alarm filter (EPCGen2 Alarm)

All read modes support the EPCGen2 Alarm filter. To configure it, you should follow these steps:

1. Click on the EPCGen2 filter tab
2. Provide the following parameters:
  - Mask offset: 32 (required to start comparing at the beginning of the EPC value) (3a).
  - Mask length: length of your mask. E.g.: 32 (3b).
  - Filter mask: the pattern (in hexadecimal) to look for. For instance: 0x303602c4 (3c).
3. Click on Save to save the settings across reboots.

EPCGen2 Alarm (multiple patterns)

When using the Alarm mode, it is possible to configure multiple alarm patterns. To do so, you will need to:

1. Enable the Use SW filter only option. (This may lead to a degraded performance in read intensive applications )

2. Set the Filter Mask to a JSON value, such as:

@json=[{"mask":"0xAAAA","epcoffset":"58","bitlength":"16"},{"mask":"0x0000", "epcoffset":"0","bitlength":"16"}]

Where:

- - the mask is a hexadecimal pattern and must be a multiple of two characters.
  - epcoffset is the bit offset starting at the EPC code. To start comparing at the beginning of the EPC, just set it to 0.
  - bitlength: bit length of the comparison

It is possible to compare any number of bits. For instance, to compare against a pattern where:

- The bit at the third position is 1
- Or the bit at the seventh position is 1

The Filter Mask would be:

@json=[{"mask":"0xFF","epcoffset":"2","bitlength":"1"}, {"mask":"0xFF", "epcoffset":"6","bitlength":"1"}]

3. If the configuration works, save it by clicking on the Save button (top right corner).

Using a regex filter

The regex filter allows setting a mask to tell what tags you want to get an answer from using a regular expression to filter based on EPC. It implements the full regex filter based on the syntax defined by Java 8:

For instance, in order to filter tags that start and end in 0, use

@json={"regex":"^0.*0$"}

Where:

- ^0 means to match a 0 at the start of the line
- .* means any content
- 0$ means a 0 at the end of line

This will work regardless of the EPC length.

Using the hardware filter

If you want to combine the power of filtering using the EPCGen2 standard filter with the flexibility of software filtering, you can do so by setting the Filter mask to a JSON with the following parameters:

@json=[{"hwmask":"0x30","hwepcoffset":"0","hwbitlength":"8"}]

Take into account that only one hardware filter is allowed, and its logic is: passes hwfilter AND (passes swfilter1 OR swfilter2... OR regex1 OR regex2...)

Using Serial Filtering

In some environments and systems, it is better to filter via the Serial part of the RFID tag memory. This way, the EPC conversion to EAN13 is not affected.

To configure an alarm filter for the serial section, set the Mask offset (bits) to 90 or more.

Network & time

The Network & time page allows you to configure your device IP method (DHCP/static), IP address, Mask, Gateway, DNS addresses and NTP servers (if any).

When choosing the DHCP method, it is not possible to configure the rest of the Network settings.

In addition, you can effectively change your device Date, Time or Timezone.

To save your changes, click on the corresponding Save button.

Services

AdvanNet can be easily configured to integrate it with your own infrastructure/project by means of the Services page. On this section you will find a complete list of the available configurable services:

- HamachiService: uses Hamachi to create a VPN so the reader can be accessed remotely.
- AlarmService
- CSVService
- MQTTService: Send event data to a message broker using the MQTT protocol
- SQLService: Gives the reader the ability to execute SQL queries against a database on different events (e.g.: to insert or delete data)
- USBHIDService
- DiagnosticsService
- SCloudService: link your device to AdvanCloud by specifying your hostname to obtain the SCloud code.
- HTTPService: Send read and alarm events to your server via HTTP.
- AdvanNetRestService: enable/disable HTTPS or specify an authentication method (Basic or Digest)

Click on the Save button to save the configuration of the current service on the screen (HamachiService on the previous image).

Enable secure browsing (HTTPS)

As of AdvanNet v2.5.1

In order to enable HTTPS, please follow these steps:

1. Click on the AdvanNetRestService
2. Check the Use HTTPS option
3. Save the changes by clicking on Save current
4. Reboot the device

HTTPS Certificate fingerprint

The next time you use AdvanNet after enabling HTTPS, you will be given a security exception, as the certificate is self-signed and the browser will not automatically trust the site.

In order to recognize the certificate, please verify the certificate's fingerprint matches the following values:

SHA-512:

B9:5D:1B:3F:08:91:97:3B:53:32:44:15:38:47:1A:5F:AF:CE:27:75:AB:F4:34:76:DB:B4:88:6C:D9:6D:44:F2:3D:0C:7B:21:C6:3A:10:7C:8C:81:20:FB:F9:CD:AD:01:95:7F:10:36:B2:DA:6C:11:06:DB:D5:1E:43:10:F1:58

SHA-1:

32:A6:FD:1E:74:11:76:D8:CE:4E:73:7B:6D:AB:A1:53:4A:D1:68:E3

MD5:

F9:C1:A3:20:5D:F6:BB:F9:E0:FB:4C:66:68:9B:76:11

You will find the steps to add a security exception, depending on your browser, on the links below:

Note: because of limitations imposed by most browsers enabling HTTPS will render the UI unusable.

GPIO test

Your reader has several inputs and outputs you can use to integrate it with your project: connect an external speaker, LEDs...

On this GPIO page you will be able to confirm which inputs (GPI) are available for you (red or green) and which are not (in grey).

Additionally, switch on/off the outputs (GPO) to fit your needs.

From this section it is also possible to test whether the external speaker is properly wired or the buzzer works. To do so, click on the corresponding Test button.

Events & actions

AdvanNet can be customized to activate certain outputs, speaker or buzzer when an event occurs. For instance, activate the speaker when an alarm (TAG_ALARM) is issued.

To do so, you only need to add new Event and action on this page and tune up its settings if needed.

How to

Get AdvanNet data in real time (TCP Socket 3177)

AdvanNet offers a channel for real time access to all events that occur on the reader by means of the 3177 TCP port. On this port, AdvanNet sends all kinds of information related to the reader operation including, but not limited to:

- Inventory data
- Events
- Keep-alive messages (sent every second as a message with a header with empty payload)

All data published to this port has a header in XML format. E.g:

ADVANNET/1.0 Content-Length:2350 Content-Type:text/xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<type>deviceEventMessage</type>

<deviceId>AdvanReader-m2-60</deviceId>

</deviceEventMessage>

As of May 2018, the required method to close the socket connection from the client-side is to issue an RST message.

Estimate location

Please refer to the Estimation location page for further details.

Read the TID automatically

Please refer to the Read TID page for further details

Control the GPOs, buzzer and speaker remotely

Please refer to the GPO remote control page for further details.

Disable the RF operation for some time intervals

if you would like to disable the RF operation at some time intervals, please refer to the Off intervals page.

Start reading on GPI trigger

It is possible to configure AdvanNet so it starts and stops the RF operation depending on GPI triggers. To do so, please visit the Read triggers page.

Estimate the direction of a tag

In order to estimate the direction of a tag, please refer to the Tag Direction page.

Change the Device ID

Some users might be interested in customizing the device ID. To do so, please follow the steps on the Change ID page.

Emulate TAG reads

In case you need to emulate an EPC as if you had a physical tag, you can do so by following the steps on the Read emulation page.

Export/Import/Replicate settings

It is possible to export the device configuration as an XML file to analyze it or replicate the configuration to another device. To do so, please follow the steps on the Export/Import page.

Add configuration options to connectors.xml

At some point, you might need to edit the connectors file. In that case, please follow the instructions provided on the Advanced configuration page.

Verify the RF ports return losses

In order to verify the return losses of your device's RF ports, please visit the RF Ports Return Losses page.

Analyze system performance (Tag Reading Analysis)

We have created a tool to inspect, analyze and study the tags read by a device during a test. Please refer to the Tag Reading Analysis page for further details.

Configure the alarm filter (AD Filter)

There exists a tool to minimize false alarms on your system. To configure it, please refer to the AD Filter page.

Download the system logs

You can do so in the dashboard, under the export submenu:

Advanced features

GUI color scheme customization

On demand, AdvanNet allows you to customize the user interface so it coincides with your company brand. The elements that can be customized are:

The custom logo can be placed directly to folder /home/keonn/etc/customLogo.png

The color scheme can be changed by creating a CSS file and placing it on /home/keonn/etc/customStyles.css

After saving the files in the right place, refresh the page and your customization will be applied.

Development SDK

Keonn devices support two development SDKs:

- REST SDK: you will find more details on the REST API Development page and the REST reference guide on the Downloads section.
- ThingMagic Mercury SDK: develop your own embedded applications using a modified version of the Mercury API for Java