RFID-Based Automated Computer Terminal Access and Time Management System for Internet Cafes: The “CRBRS” Gaming Hub Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology

This study presents the design, implementation, and empirical evaluation of the CRBRS Gaming Hub, a hardware-software integrated system engineered to resolve the operational inefficiencies inherent in manual time-tracking and billing practices within Philippine internet cafe environments. The system architecturally couples an RFID-enabled identification layer—implemented via the MFRC522 reader module interfaced to an Arduino Uno microcontroller—with a dual-service backend orchestrated inside an Electron main process. This backend splits responsibilities between two standalone child processes: server.js, an Express REST API server bound strictly to localhost:5000 to eliminate external network exposure and suppress Windows Firewall interruptions; and bridge.js, a dedicated hardware monitoring service that communicates with the Arduino via Serial Port using a Readline Parser (@serialport/parser-readline) to prevent input/output blocking during concurrent session transactions.
Session security is enforced through a native operating system process management mechanism. Upon application launch, the Electron IPC handler captures the native Process Identifier (PID) of each spawned user process and registers it in an active session array. At the precise moment a user’s account balance reaches ₱0.00, the system executes a deep-tree forceful termination command (taskkill /PID <target> /T /F) to eliminate all associated processes without exception.
Quantitative evaluation conducted in a controlled laboratory environment simulating the concurrent session load of a standard internet cafe demonstrated that reducing manual operational dependency from 85% to 50% yielded a measurable improvement in system efficiency—from a baseline index of 0.05 to 0.45. The system achieved a mean authentication response time of 1.4 seconds and demonstrated 100% reliability in automated terminal lockout events triggered by zero-balance conditions. All financial parameters in this study are denominated in Philippine Pesos (₱), establishing a standard billing rate of ₱20.00 per hour, tiered in 15-minute increments at ₱5.00 per tier.
These findings substantiate the technical and operational viability of the CRBRS Gaming Hub as a professional, low-cost solution for automating user authentication, session management, and real-time billing in Philippine internet cafe operations.

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