Universal Edge Gateway & Industrial GPIO

Directional RFID Dock Gate Portals & Custom WMS

Equip warehouse dock doors, overhead conveyors, and anti-theft turnstiles with intelligent directional state machines. Determine Inbound vs. Outbound transit automatically, trigger 24V industrial relays, and stream real-time events to your custom ERP.

<50ms
GPIO Relay Latency
Dual-Bank
Directional Antennas
MQTT / REST
WMS Webhook Protocol
Modbus TCP
PLC Conveyor Trigger
Directional RFID dock portal for custom WMS integration
Trajectory & Phase Physics

How Dual-Bank Antennas Determine Transit Direction

Standard single-antenna readers cannot distinguish between arrival and departure. OpenRFID pairs two antenna banks with a microsecond sliding-window state machine:

Antenna Bank A (Outside)

First Arrival Timestamp

Facing the truck dock apron. When an incoming forklift approaches, tags are first registered on Bank A at time T_0 with high RSSI.

Antenna Bank B (Inside)

Second Departure Timestamp

Facing the warehouse staging bay. As the forklift completes portal transit, tags register on Bank B at time T_1.

Edge State Engine

Automated Classification

Since T_0 < T_1 within a 5-second window, the transit is finalized as INBOUND. A 15-second cooldown debounce locks the tag to prevent stationary bounce.

Industrial GPIO & Automation

Industrial Hardware Interfacing: 24V Relays, Sensors & PLCs

Enterprise RFID portals operate in harsh industrial environments alongside forklifts, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and high-speed conveyors:

Andon Stack Lights & Sirens 24V DC Isolated

3-Color Visual Feedback Relays

Forklift drivers cannot look at a computer monitor while navigating pallets through dock doors. The gateway directly controls a 3-color industrial stack light:

  • Green Light: Transit verified against WMS ASN / Inbound PO; door clears.
  • Amber Strobe: Beam broken, RFID RF field active and reading tags.
  • Red Strobe + 90dB Siren: Mismatched SKU, unbilled tag, or unauthorized security exit.
PLC & Conveyor Automation Modbus TCP / <50ms

Conveyor Diverter Synchronization

For high-speed automated carton sorting, the gateway decodes EPC tags as boxes pass an RFID tunnel, looks up sorting destination in RAM, and fires Modbus TCP register writes to Siemens or Allen-Bradley PLCs to actuate pneumatic diverter arms in under 50ms.

  • Eliminates optical barcode line-of-sight orientation requirements on conveyor belts.
  • Supports speeds up to 3.5 meters per second with 100% read accuracy.
  • Direct Modbus register mapping: Coil 0001 (Divert Lane A), Coil 0002 (Divert Lane B).
Directional State Engine

TypeScript / Node.js Directional Transit Engine

Real-world state machine classifying multi-tag transits with edge cooldown debouncing:

DirectionalPortalGateEngine.ts
TypeScript / In-Memory State Machine
interface TransitRecord {
  gateId: string;
  facing: "OUTSIDE" | "INSIDE";
  timestamp: number;
}

const activeTransitCache = new Map<string, TransitRecord>();
const cooldownCache = new Map<string, number>();

export class DirectionalPortalGateEngine {
  /**
   * Processes raw tag bursts from physical antenna banks.
   * Compares millisecond timestamps to deduce transit trajectory.
   */
  static async processTransit(
    companyId: string,
    gateId: string,
    facing: "OUTSIDE" | "INSIDE",
    tags: string[]
  ): Promise<{ inbound: string[]; outbound: string[] }> {
    const now = Date.now();
    const inbound: string[] = [];
    const outbound: string[] = [];

    for (const epc of tags) {
      const key = `${companyId}_${gateId}_${epc}`;
      const cooldownKey = `${companyId}_${epc}`;

      // 1. Skip tag if within active cooldown (prevents stationary jitter)
      if (cooldownCache.has(cooldownKey) && cooldownCache.get(cooldownKey)! > now) {
        continue;
      }

      const prev = activeTransitCache.get(key);
      if (!prev) {
        // First detection on either bank
        activeTransitCache.set(key, { gateId, facing, timestamp: now });
      } else {
        const delta = now - prev.timestamp;
        // Require opposite facing within a 5-second transit envelope
        if (delta < 5000 && prev.facing !== facing) {
          if (prev.facing === "OUTSIDE" && facing === "INSIDE") {
            inbound.push(epc);
          } else if (prev.facing === "INSIDE" && facing === "OUTSIDE") {
            outbound.push(epc);
          }

          // Apply 15-second debounce cooldown
          cooldownCache.set(cooldownKey, now + 15000);
          activeTransitCache.delete(key);
        }
      }
    }

    return { inbound, outbound };
  }
}
          
Real-Time WMS Integration

Cryptographically Verified Transit Webhook Payload

Dispatched via HTTPS POST to your custom WMS endpoint with X-Hub-Signature-256 headers:

POST https://wms.yourcompany.com/api/rfid/transit HMAC-SHA256
{
  "eventId": "evt_20260912_gate04_9921",
  "gateId": "DOCK_GATE_04",
  "facility": "MUMBAI_CENTRAL_DC",
  "direction": "INBOUND",
  "operator": {
    "employeeId": "EMP_8412",
    "name": "Rajesh Sharma",
    "badgeEpc": "E28011606000021A5288B001"
  },
  "inboundCount": 142,
  "epcTags": [
    "E28011606000021A5288001",
    "E28011606000021A5288002",
    "E28011606000021A5288003"
  ],
  "timestamp": "2026-09-12T10:45:12.420Z",
  "status": "COMMITTED_TO_WMS"
}
              

Forklift Operator Attribution

When a forklift transits through the dock door, the reader reads the operator's RFID badge alongside cargo tags. The gateway extracts the badge, maps it to the driver profile, and removes it from inventory item counts.

Replay Attack Prevention

Every webhook payload includes a millisecond Unix timestamp and cryptographic signature. Webhook receivers verify that the timestamp is within 30 seconds of system time to prevent replay attacks.

Frequently Asked Questions: Custom WMS & Dock Gates

Technical answers for industrial automation engineers, systems architects, and warehouse directors.

How do dock door RFID readers determine whether pallets are moving IN or OUT?
Standard RFID readers read tags in all directions. Our directional gateway uses dual antenna arrays (one bank facing OUTSIDE the dock door, one bank facing INSIDE). By measuring the millisecond timestamp delta and phase-angle progression of tag reads across both banks, the sliding-window state machine automatically classifies the movement as Inbound Receipt or Outbound Dispatch.
Can the custom RFID gateway integrate directly with industrial PLCs and conveyor diverters?
Yes. In addition to REST and MQTT webhooks, our industrial gateway supports Modbus TCP and direct 24V isolated GPIO inputs and outputs. When a carton passes an RFID tunnel on a conveyor belt, the reader decodes the EPC and fires a PLC trigger in under 50ms to pneumatic arms or flippers for real-time automated sorting.
How does the anti-theft EAS security gate work with custom ERP backends?
When tags pass an exit checkpoint, the edge gateway queries an in-memory Redis cache of tag states. If an unbilled tag (status not SOLD) passes, the gateway triggers a physical 24V industrial GPIO relay in under 120ms, activating an audible siren and flashing red LED stack light while logging the incident via webhook.
How do you prevent duplicate reads when pallets sit stationary near the portal?
Our middleware implements an edge TTL (Time-To-Live) debounce filter with a configurable 15-second cooldown window. Once a pallet is recorded as transiting the gate, subsequent reflection reads from stationary pallets are ignored until the transit is fully finalized.
Can employee badge tags be scanned simultaneously with stock items?
Yes. Our middleware detects UHF employee access badges in the same high-speed burst scan. It attributes the pallet movement directly to the forklift operator or staff member while filtering the badge ID out of the inventory line items sent to your WMS.
What message protocols can our custom software receive from the RFID gateway?
We support standard REST Webhooks (HTTPS POST JSON), MQTT topics for IoT pipelines, Apache Kafka event streams for high-throughput logistics, and industrial Modbus TCP for PLC conveyor sorting.
Can the gateway operate completely offline if the server disconnects?
Yes. The gateway includes an offline-first encrypted SQLite database (WAL mode). All transits, timestamps, and tag lists are persisted locally on the industrial edge PC and forwarded automatically once server connectivity restores.

Build Custom RFID Portals for Your Enterprise

We engineer bespoke RFID hardware portals, 24V GPIO controllers, and high-throughput microservices tailored to your proprietary ERP or WMS stack. Includes full source code ownership in Node.js, Go, or C# .NET.