NFC: Tag reader

The NFC Tag reader sample demonstrates how to use the NFC Reader ST25R3911B driver to interact with an NFC-A Tag.

Requirements

The sample supports the following development kits:

Hardware platforms

PCA

Board name

Build target

nRF5340 DK

PCA10095

nrf5340dk_nrf5340

nrf5340dk_nrf5340_cpuapp

nRF52 DK

PCA10040

nrf52dk_nrf52832

nrf52dk_nrf52832

nRF52840 DK

PCA10056

nrf52840dk_nrf52840

nrf52840dk_nrf52840

The sample has the following additional requirements:

  • NFC Reader ST25R3911B Nucleo expansion board (X-NUCLEO-NFC05A1)

  • NFC Type 2 Tag or Type 4 Tag

Overview

The sample shows how to use the ST25R3911B NFC reader to read data from a tag that supports the ISO/IEC 14443 standard (NFC-A technology). You can use this device to read and parse content of an NFC Type 2 Tag or Type 4 Tag.

After successful parsing, the tag content is printed using the logging subsystem.

Before reading data, the sample sends the appropriate initialization commands (ALL Request, SENS Request) to detect which NFC technology is used. It also performs an automatic collision resolution.

Supported tag types are:

  • NFC Type 2 Tag

  • NFC Type 4 Tag

Building and running

This sample can be found under samples/nfc/tag_reader in the nRF Connect SDK folder structure.

To build the sample with Visual Studio Code, follow the steps listed on the How to build an application page in the nRF Connect for VS Code extension documentation. See Configuring and building an application for other building scenarios, Programming an application for programming steps, and Testing and optimization for general information about testing and debugging in the nRF Connect SDK.

Note

If you are using debug messages in the NFCT driver, the driver might not be working properly if you have CONFIG_LOG_MODE_IMMEDIATE enabled. The NFCT driver is part of the nrfx driver package. For more information about this driver, see the NFCT driver page in the nrfx repository.

Testing

After programming the sample to your development kit, you can test it with an NFC-A Type 2 Tag or Tag 4 Type. Complete the following steps:

  1. Connect the Nucleo expansion board to the development kit.

  2. Connect to the kit with a terminal emulator (for example, nRF Connect Serial Terminal). See Testing and optimization for the required settings and steps.

  3. Reset the kit.

  4. Touch the ST25R3911B NFC reader with a Type 2 Tag or Type 4 Tag.

  5. Observe the output in the terminal. The content of the tag is printed there.

  6. After a short delay, the tag can be read again.

Dependencies

This sample uses the following nRF Connect SDK drivers:

This sample uses the following nRF Connect SDK libraries:

In addition, it uses the following Zephyr libraries:

  • include/zephyr/types.h

  • include/sys/printk.h