Seminar Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award of The

BAR CODES

Seminar Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY

IN

ELECTRONICS & INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERING

(U. P. Technical University,Lucknow)

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & INSTRUMENTATION

ENGINEERING

IIMT COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

GREATER NOIDA

By

VIPIN KUMAR

E.I. Final Year

Roll No. 0721632059

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost I would like to thank the almighty, who bestowed upon me the patience, strength and ability to embark upon this work and carry it to its completion. It is a matter of great pride and privilege for me to have the esteemed supervision of Ms. Taslima Ahmed as the seminar coordinator.

I would render this acknowledgement as incomplete if I don’t mention the able guidance of Mr. Jitendra Kumar (seminar guide).I would always be thankful to him for the critical analysis of my seminar. I am in debt to him for his suggestions that made me thinking.

I am thankful to Mr. Umesh Kumar (HOD) Electronics department, for providing the internet facility in college premises which served as a boon in material collection .A special thanks to all the faculty members and the non teaching staff for their invaluable support.

Vipin Kumar

E.I. Final Year

IIMT College of Engineering

CERTIFICATE

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT Mr. Vipin Kumar

OF B.TECH FINAL YEAR, ELECTRONICS & INSTRUMENTATION DELIVERED A SEMINAR ON “BARCODES” ON 06 /11 /2009 ACCORDING TO THE U.P. TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY CURRICULUM. HIS PERFORMANCE IN THE SEMINAR WAS EXCELLENT/VERY GOOD/SATISFACTORY.

Mr.Jitendra Kumar Ms. Taslima Ahmed

SEMINAR GUIDE SEMINAR COORDINATOR

Mr. Umesh Kumar

Head of Department

History

While it may seem like barcodes have been with us forever, barcodes didn’t really make an impact until the 1970’s. It wasn’t until 1974 that the first barcode scanner was employed and the first product barcoded.

In 1932, Wallace Flint suggested that an automated retail checkout system might be feasible. While his concept was deemed unworkable, Flint continued to support the idea of automated checkout throughout his career. In fact, Flint, who went on to become the vice-president of the association of food chains some 40 years later, was instrumental in the development of the UPC code.

Initial Uses of Barcodes

In 1948, a local food chain store owner approached Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia asking about research into a method of automatically reading product information during checkout. Bernard Silver, a graduate student at Drexel Institute, along with fellow graduate student Norman Joseph Woodland, teamed together to develop a solution.

On October 20, 1949, Woodland and Silver succeeded in building a working prototype describing their invention as “article classification…through the medium of identifying patterns”. On October 7, 1952, they were granted a patent (US Patent #2,612,994) for their “Classifying Apparatus and Method”. Efforts to develop a working system accelerated in the 1960’s.

First Commercial Use

Bar coding was first used commercially in 1966, but to make the system acceptable to the industry as a whole there would have to be some sort of industry standard. By 1970, Logicon Inc. had developed the Universal Grocery Products Identification Code (UGPIC). The first company to produce barcode equipment for retail trade using (using UGPIC) was the American company Monarch Marking (1970), and for industrial use, the British company Plessey Telecommunications (1970).

In 1972, a committee was formed within the grocery industry to select a standard code to be used in the industry. IBM proposed a design, based upon the UGPIC work and similar to today’s UPC code. On April 3, 1973, the committee selected the UPC symbol (based on the IBM proposal) as the industry standard. George J. Laurer is considered the inventor of U.P.C. or Uniform Product Code.

First UPC Scanner

In June of 1974, the first U.P.C. scanner was installed at a Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first product to have a barcode was Wrigley’s Gum.

INDEX

CHAPTER 1.INTRODUCTION

1.1 WHAT ARE BARCODES?

1.2 BARCODES BASIC

1.3 TYPES OF BARCODES

1.4 BARCODES SYMBOL CHARACTERISTICS

CHAPTER 2.ANATOMY OF BARCODE

2.1 NUMBER SYSTEM CHARACTER

2.2 THE THREE GUARD BANDS

2.3 MANUFACTURER CODE

2.4 PRODUCT CODE

2.5 CHECK DIGIT

2.6 WHERE IS THE PRICE?

CHAPTER 3.BARCODE STANDARDS

3.1 UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE (U.P.C.)

3.2 EUROPEAN ARTICLE NUMBER (E.A.N.)

CHAPTER 4.METHODS TO READ BARCODES

4.1 BARCODE READER

4.2 TYPES OF BARCODE READERS

4.3 BARCODES SCANNER

CHAPTER 5.BARCODES PRINTERS AND GENERATORS

5.1 BARCODE PRINTER

5.2 BARCODE GENERATOR

CHAPTER 6.USES AND BENEFITS OF BARCODES

6.1 USES OF BARCODES

6.2 BENEFITS OF BARCODES

CHAPTER 7.REFERENCE

CHAPTER 8.SUMMARY

1. Introduction

1.1 What are barcodes?

Barcodes are those ever-familiar "bars" and "numbers" on virtually everything. In 1973, Barcodes quietly strolled into our world. In just over 25 years, Barcode has literally taken over the world. Now there's a barcode for virtually everything.

There's short barcodes, and tall barcodes.

There's postal barcodes and international barcodes.

There's 2-D barcodes. And there's even barcodes for the humble "bumble-bee". From letters, to cokes, from fishes to smokes - it's "clothed" with friendly Barcode.

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes.

They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software.

The primary barcode used in the United States is the UPC (Universal Product Code) barcode. The UPC is also the "original" barcode. The UPC was designed for the grocery industry. Because of the large number of items normally "checked-out" at the grocery store, a method was needed to speed up and eliminate "human" cashier errors. In 1973, the UPC barcode was born.

To the average person, the barcode looks confusing and complex, but to a "bar-coded" friendly computer, it's actually very simple.

1.2 Bar codes basic

Bar codes provide a simple and inexpensive method of encoding text information that is easily read by inexpensive electronic readers.
Bar coding also allows data to be collected rapidly and with extreme accuracy. A bar code consists of a series of parallel, adjacent bars and spaces. Predefined bar and space patterns are used to encode small strings of character data into a printed symbol.
Bar codes can be thought of as a printed type of the Morse code with narrow bars (and spaces) representing dots, and wide bars representing dashes.
A bar code reader decodes a bar code by scanning a light source across the bar code and measuring the intensity of light reflected back by the white spaces. The pattern of reflected light is detected with a photodiode which produces an electronic signal that exactly matches the printed bar code pattern. This signal is then decoded back to the original data by inexpensive electronic circuits.
Due to the design of most bar code it does not make any difference if you scan a bar code from right to left or from left to right.
The basic structure of a bar code consists of a leading and trailing quiet zone, a start pattern, one or more data characters, optionally one or two check characters and a stop pattern.

There are a variety of different types of bar code encoding schemes, each of which were originally developed to full fill a specific need in a specific industry.
The different symbologies have different capabilities for encoding data. For example the UPC symbology used to identify retail products always contains 12 numeric digits.
These type of bar codes are called "linear symbologies" because they are made up of a series of lines of different widths. Most commercially available bar code scanners are able to read all of the different linear bar code symbologies therefore you do not need different readers for different types of bar codes.
New "2-Dimensional" bar code symbologies like EAN, Aztec Code etc. are also now available that can encode several thousand bytes of data in a single bar code symbol including text or binary data. The newer 2D bar code symbologies typically require special bar code readers that are designed specifically for reading them.
The primary purpose of a bar code is to identify something by labeling the item with a bar code containing a unique number or character string.
Bar codes are typically used with a database application where the data encoded in the bar codes is used as an index to a record in the database that contains more detailed information about the item that is being scanned.
For example, when a checkout clerk scans a bar code on a product in a grocery store, the bar code data is fed to a computer that looks up the information in a central database and returns more detailed information about the item that was scanned including possibly a description of the item and a price. By using bar codes, the grocery store does not need to put a price tag on each item in the store and they can also change the price for a particular item by modifying a single entry in the central database. They can also track how much of a product is currently in stock so that they know when to re-order more of each item as the number of items in stock falls.
Bar codes also provide a quick and error free means for inputting the data into an application running on a computer.
By using bar codes, the potential for errors from manual data input is eliminated.
Another typical application for bar codes is therefore for inputting data without having to type. For example you could encode name or address data in a bar code on an ID badge and then scan the ID badges to input a persons name into a computer program instead of typing the information.

1.3 Types of barcodes

A) Linear or one dimensional barcodes

B) Matrix or two dimensional barcodes
a) Linear barcodes:
These type of bar codes are called "linear symbologies" because they are made up of a series of lines of different widths
ex: U.P.C.( Universal Product Code)
code 128
code 39

b) Matrix (2D) barcodes:

A matrix code, also known as a 2D barcode or simply a 2D code, is a two-dimensional way of representing information. It is similar to a linear (1-dimensional) barcode, but has more data representation capability.
Ex: E.A.N(European Article Number)
First, Second and Third Generation Barcodes

GTIN-12 number encoded in UPC-A barcode symbol. First and last digit are always placed outside the symbol to indicate Quiet Zones that are necessary for barcode scanners to work properly

EAN-13 (GTIN-13) number encoded in EAN-13 barcode symbol. First digit is always placed outside the symbol, additionally right quiet zone indicator (>) is used to indicate Quiet Zones that are necessary for barcode scanners to work properly.
1.4Bar Code Symbol Characteristics
1. Magnification
The magnification (size) of the bar code symbol is determined by the X-dimension (one narrow module width) in relationto a nominal size.
The allowable magnification range depends on the symbol type and the intended scanning environment. Reliability ofscanning is always enhanced by selecting a magnification higher than the minimum.
To print an accurate and high quality bar code symbol a number of factors, such as theprinting process, ink quality, and substrate, must be taken into consideration.
2. Bar Height
Once the magnification of the bar code symbol has been determined, for EAN/UPC Bar Code symbols it is important toensure that the height remains in proportion to the magnification, and does not drop below the minimum specified.
3. Quiet Zones (Light Margins)
The Quiet Zones (Light Margin) of the bar code symbol are the solid, light areas before the first bar and after the last bar.These areas are extremely important as they allow the scanner to recognise the beginning and end of the bar codesymbol.
Any obstruction or reduction in the Quiet Zones will most likely result in scanning difficulties.
The minimum size required for the Quiet Zones depends on the magnification of the bar code symbol.
It is recommendedto allow slightly more than the minimum required Quiet Zones to allow for any possible ink spread or plate registrationissues.

4.Colours

The colours and type of ink you choose for your bar code symbols is very important.As a scanner reads a bar code symbol using an infrared light source it sees the symbol differently to the human eye.

As aresult, some colour combinations and ink types are unsuitable for scanning because they do not provide sufficientcontrast between the dark bars and the light background, or they provide a much too high reflectance value.

The most suitable and reliable colour combination is black bars on a white background.

However, as a general rule, thebackground of the bar code symbol can be a light, warm colour that does not contain any black (such as yellow or lightorange), and the bar colour can be a dark, cool colour that has no, or low, red content (such as dark blue or dark green).

5. Substrate

The substrate (the material the bar code symbol is printed on) is very important. If unsuitable this can cause scanningdifficulties. Different packaging materials reflect light differently, which can have an effect on the scanning ability of thebar code symbol.

This is especially evident on transparent and translucent packages where the background is not printed.

For printing bar code symbols it is recommended that you avoid the following:

• High gloss substrates

• Transparent or semi-transparent backgrounds

• Transparent wrappers over the printed bar code symbol if necessary to print onto a highly reflective (flexible) substrate, we recommend the following:

• Increase the magnification of the bar code symbol to between 105% and 120% (X-dimension 0.35mm - 0.40mm)

• Increase the amount of Bar Width Reduction

• Make the background of the symbol as dense and less reflective as possible. To do this you may try the following:

• If you are not using wet inks, print two background layers. This may be two layers of the one colour, or you mayuse all light colours in the print run (e.g. white and yellow)

• Use a less viscous ink that will provide maximum coverage and density

6. Bar Widths and Print Quality

Always ensure that the print quality of the bar code symbol is of a high standard. Ensure that the bars in the symbol areclearly defined, watch for voids or smudging, and avoid flecks in the background colour.

Maintaining acceptable print quality and consistent print gain (ink spread) requires regular ongoing checks.

2. Anatomy of barcodes

Note: The computer does not read the numbers underneath the barcode. These Human Readable (HR) numbers are printed so a "human" can easily read the barcode, if necessary.

2.1 Number System Character:

This number is a UPC system number that characterizes specific types of barcodes. In a UPC barcode it is normally on the left of the barcode. The actual "barcode" (the "bars" and "spaces") is the first "barcode" after the first "guard bar". The Number System Character is the blue box on the "Anatomy of a Barcode".

Codes of the Number System Character:

• 0 - Standard UPC number.
• 1 - Reserved.
• 2 - Random weight items like fruits, vegetables, and meats, etc.
• 3 - Pharmaceuticals
• 4 - In-store code for retailers.
• 5 - Coupons
• 6 - Standard UPC number.
• 7 - Standard UPC number.
• 8 - Reserved.
• 9 - Reserved.

2.2 Three Guard Bars:

There are "3 guard bars".

They are located at the beginning, middle and end. The beginning and ending guard bars are encoded as a "bar-space-bar" or 101. The middle guard bar is encoded as "space-bar-space-bar-space" or 01010.

The guard bars "tell" the computer-scanner when the manufacturer and product code begin and end. For example, when the computer-scanner reads the first "101" or guard bar, the computer knows the next series of numbers is either the manufacturer or product code. And when the computer reads the "01010" or middle guard bar, the computer knows another number is coming. The 3 guard bars are highlighted with a green box on the "Anatomy of a Barcode".

Also, the first guard bar scanned is used by the computer to calculate the "width" of one unit.

2.3 Manufacturer Code:

This is a five digit number specifically assigned to the manufacturer of the product. The manufacturer codes are maintained and assigned by the Uniform Code Council (UCC). Every product the manufacturer makes, carries the same manufacturer code. For example, the manufacturer code for Kellogg's is 38000. Every product Kellogg makes carries 38000 as the manufacturer code in the bar code. The manufacturer code is yellow on the "Anatomy of a Barcode".

2.4 Product Code:

The product code is a five digit number that the manufacturer assigns for a particular product. Every different product and every different packaging or size, gets a unique product code.

For instance, a 16oz bottle of coke gets a different product code than a 24 oz bottle of coke.

For example: Kellogg's 13.5 oz Rice Krispies barcode is 38000 90530 — the 38000 is the manufacturer code for Kellogg and the 90530 is the product code for 13.5oz Rice Krispies. The product code is orange on the "Anatomy of a Barcode".

2.5 Check digit:

Also called the "self-check" digit. The check digit is on the outside right of the bar code. The check digit is an "old-programmer's trick" to validate the other digits (number system character, manufacturer code, and product code) were read correctly. The check digit is red on the "Anatomy of a Barcode".

How the computer calculates the check digit: