A hardware based model for an asset monitoring and tracking system: Case of laptops

Corporate mobility initiatives and the anytime, anywhere information workers is on the rise. This is mostly fuelled by availability of affordable and more powerful mobile computing devices, especially laptops and tablets. One direct consequence of this is a sharp increase in laptop theft; this is partly driven by the fact that laptops are portable and easy to conceal and pocket away, they fetch a good second-hand price on the informal market and availability of easy online disposal platforms such as Gumtree, where they are sold cheaply and anonymously. Despite the fact that many solutions have been developed in an attempt to annihilate this growing calamity, their cost has left many small and medium organizations preferring to do without one. In an attempt to bridge this gap, the research reported in this paper aimed at designing a generic middleware architecture for use in a hardware-based (RFIDs, wireless sensor modes, fingerprint scanners and mobile phones) affordable laptop monitoring and tracking system. The resulting system prototype was evaluated using diverse experimental cases within a university in South Africa.