Digital Chess Board: Hardware Design Idea #1

I was looking at experimenting with RFID tags/readers and what could be an interesting project to attempt. I wasn't particularly interested by normal uses - inventory management is kind of boring. When thinking about what makes RFID great, several things come up:

• Tags can be passive and don't require power
• Tags can have unique information encoded on them
• Work through the material - don't require optical line of sight
• Robust and fully electronic
• Can be configured to have the right sensitivity - will not detect tags unless very close

Later, thinking about chess, I realized that quite a few of these characteristics can be useful. Chess pieces can be attached with RFID tags and programmed with identifying information, such as color and piece type. They can be detected through the chessboard to keep the state of the board in check. No mechanical components assist in a longer lifetime. Having correct sensitivity reduces the number of false positives. That's why I decided to go through and think more about the design of this.

These will combine into an 8 x 8 board of black and white semi-translucent. The antenna will be designed as a part of the PCB, which might be a bit challenging.

I was thinking of using the following LED Driver and RFID Tag Reader. Unfortunately, this does seem to be pretty costly with up to $10 dollars per "chess tile".