RFID Timeline:
The History and Development of RFID Technology
1945
During World War II the British were, understandably, desirous of being able to distinguish between their own returning aircraft and those of the enemy since the coast of France was less than 20 miles away. A system was developed whereby a transponder was placed on "Friendlies" so that by giving the appropriate response to an interrogating signal, a "friendly" could be distinguished from a "foe." For a true life account: http://aafo.com/library/history/B-17/b17part9.htm
.1960's and 1970's
The need for security and safety surrounding the use of nuclear materials drove further development of RFID "tagging" of equipment and personnel.
1977
The technology which had been developed in government labs for these applications was transferred to the public sector by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories (LASL) resulting in two companies forming to explore possible civilian uses. These companies were Amtech in New Mexico and Identronix Research in Santa Cruz, California.
1979
Several applications were explored by these two companies. For example, early RFID transponders were placed in the backs of a dairy cows to allow tracking of the animals' identification and temperature. The thought, being researched by the University of Chicago, was that such things as the animal's health, ovulation, and so forth could be determined by tracking temperature. Furthermore, automatic feeding without overfeeding could be accomplished when the animal's unique ID code was obtained from the transponder.
1981
The railroads get involved after a disastrous attempt to use Bar Code technology to keep track of rolling stock. America's railroads then turned to RFID as a possible solution to many problems caused by the unique environment of their industry. Radio frequency has the advantage of longer read distance, ability to read through dirt, rain, snow, fog, oil, or through non-metallic objects, and, of course, the ability to read in direct sunlight.
1982
Other applications were spun off from this original application including identification of fleet vehicles (tractors/trailers/containerized cargo), automatic toll collection on highways, access control to secured or monitored areas, and even the Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) .
1984
RFID tags were regularly being manufactured by several U.S. and European companies. Some tags could be programmed once at the time of manufacture or manually programmed at the time of installation. These are generally referred to as WORM or Write Once, Read Many tags. Some could be electronically programmed either by direct contact or via the RF link. These are generally referred to as Programmable tags. Usually EEPROM based, these can be re-programmed between 10,000-500,000 times.
1988
The primary effort in RFID shifted somewhat from new applications to performance improvement, cost reduction, and size reduction.
1990 to Present
There is much competition among RFID manufacturers to sell the cheapest, smallest and most reliable RFID device. Debates break out over development of standards for RFID technology to make it a more valuable and useful technology. RFID manufacturers seek one type of standard and RFID consumers seek another. The debate continues. Should the debate settle the value of the RFID industry will likely increase exponentially.
