Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Statistics show that nearly one billion people are suffering from chronic hunger today. In Malaysia, although the poverty rate is improved every year, the numbers are still high. In order to solve this problem, the government has provided many kinds of initiatives and aid to reduce poverty in the country. One of the common ways is providing a food distribution system.

The goal of food distribution is to allocate the food accordingly to peoples in need in the rural and urban areas. However, in certain situations this system become corrupt and not transparent. People who had been given the responsibility to distribute food or any other supplies, abuse their power by prioritize their family members, friends and people with a good relationship with them instead of peoples who deserve the supplies more. Then, to make it worst, some irresponsible individuals illegally without any consent take the food supply allocated for those in need without action taken on them due to the sloppy system in the previous method of distributing food.

This project will introduce a new system that can solve these problems. Food dispenser is use as a mechanism to distribute food and other supplies. Food dispenser is a feeding machine that will dispense a specific amount of portion and store dry food such as grain and cereals. The current food dispenser operates manually. This project is an innovation of the current food dispenser and it is an automated operates machine namely Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Based Automatic Food Dispenser for the Needy Using Arduino.

1.2 Objective of the Project

For this project, there are two objectives to ensure that this project can give benefits to users, the objectives are:

I. To improve the current food distribution system

II. To innovate the present food dispenser into the automate operate machine.

III. To test the effectuality of the prototype with the integrate system

1.3 Problem Statement

Food distribution is a mechanism where the food is distributed to the general public and societies. Food distribution had been practically applied date back for thousands of years. Most governments and communities around the world are highly eager and realize the need to facilitate the distribution of food to those in need. But this system can involve a variety of risk factors.

One of them is the inefficiency of the current food distribution system. This issue happens due to lack of attitude and integrity from the people in power. In some cases, supplies and aid did not distribute fairly to peoples in need by these abuse power leaders. They only prioritize the supplies to people who have to own interest for them. Then, greed peoples also take the supplies although they do not need it which make this problem becoming worst. Finally, the amount of food distributed to peoples who desperately need the supplies surely not enough to support their daily life.

Now, since the idea to distribute food is to use food dispensers, the next problem is all about food dispensers. The current food dispenser operates manually and not suitable to use in the food distribution system. It is because food dispenser is not originally designed for distribution system but only limited for home and personal use. In addition, since it does not involve any electrical and electronic components, the food dispenser did not equip with a security system and memory storage that can save the data of human status.

1.4 Significance of the Project

The proposed project aims to change the current food distribution system into a well-organized system where everyone can gain an advantage and benefit through it. This will offer a different approach to distribute food to the needed with the use of a food dispenser. The poor and homeless peoples who are always marginalized will be prioritized and would be the first getting aid to enjoy this system

Next, the project is proposed to use a food dispenser as the distribution platform. It will come with the automatic food dispenser rather than the current food dispenser that operates manually. The machine is not just operated automatically but also would be equipped with the identity recognition system that can detect the data of humans, which were save in this machine’s data system. Governments or Non-Government Organisation (NGO) and companies can take advantage of this proposed project to provide aid for the needed because of cost efficiency and the additional of security’s features.

1.5 Scope and limitation of the project

Scope

Automate operate food dispensers can be used at the homeless centre such as the Kuala Lumpur Homeless Transit Centre which is very suitable for the concept of the food distribution system. It can also be used in the rural area and targeted physical infrastructure like community service centre whichever already one of the Government's initiatives to help the poor and poverty-stricken families.

Limitations

RFID has a few limitations. Since it uses frequency signals as the main medium to connect between tag information and RFID reader, materials like metals and liquid can give a bad impact on the signal reading. It is also expected to be categorised under low-frequency range which will require, every time the tag to be in close contact with the RFID reader in order to transmit data.

This proposed project is targeted to be supplied by 12V DC as the servo motor also will serve the output voltage of 12V. Hence, with the current specification, the expected load that will be used in this project is only between 5 kilograms to 20 kilograms which were fairly enough to be afford by the servo motor. Besides, the rotation of the motor cannot be too much as the motor would heat up and can cause overcurrent which sometimes can damage the cables and equipment.

Next, this project is estimated to allocate only grain as it's medium. It is because the grain is the primary stapled food and getting the highest demand among dry food. Therefore, since the targeted food dispenser can accommodate only up to 20 kg of load, so it is understandable to supply only grain as it is worried that these supplies would not be enough to support many people

1.6 Summary of the chapter

To summarize, many people all over the world were getting short of the food supply every day. Food distribution plays a big part in helping and aiding the poor and people in need. The problem is, some people do not have common sense when it came to helping the poor.

Food distribution must be changed and revolutionized into the new system; which will be more transparent and efficient. Peoples who really in need do not need to rely on other people anymore; since they can get their supply through this proposed project on their own. Then, the food dispenser; which is aim to be the main prototype in realizing this new food distribution system must be upgraded into an automated operated machine to suit the demand of the system.

The project is targeting to support the poor and homeless people in order to reduce their hunger at least once they can have a meal a day. Then, government, community service organization and maybe corporate companies, can take advantage of this proposed project in helping the people in need.

Homeless centre and community service centre are the right places to apply this new way of distributing food. However, everything in this world has its limitation. Most of the hindrance on this proposed project is came from the hardware part such as RFID, motor and size of project.