The Surprisingly Interesting History of RFID You Should Know About

Who would refuse an efficient and reliable way to collect and store data at affordable rates? Smart technology makes life easy and exciting. RFID is one among those inventions that has revolutionized the life style of many. It is a fact that Radio frequency identification (RFID) is an integral part in our life. Productivity and convenience are taken to the next level by the system. RFID tags are becoming so intricately sewed into our society that an average person probably experiences it every day without realizing. Few uses of RFID

• Student tracking and enuring their safety
• Tracking products
• Payment of road toll
• Passports
• Identification of the movents of animals and humans
• Library books
• Shipments of materials

Fascinating history behind RFID The invention of RFID has got a fascinating history of its own. It was not a sudden invention. The seed of RFID dates back to 1800s 1800s

• Fundamental understanding about electrical energy began
• 1846 -  Michael Faraday proposed that light and radio waves are a form of electromagnetic energy
• 1864 - James Clerk Maxwell published theory of electromagnetic radiation
• 1887 - Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was the first person to transmit and receive radio waves
• 1896 - Guglielmo Marconi sends first Atlantic wireless transmission

1920s

• As a technology, Radar was developed in U.S
• RFID which is a combination or radio broadcast was developed soon after

1930s

• In order to distinguish enemy aircraft during WWII an IFF transponder, a related technology was used by Britain

1940s      RFID was invented

• Refined Radar
• "Communication by Means of Reflected Power" was published by Harry Stockman, exploring RFID

1950s Full fledged research and development on RFID

• In laboratories technologies related to RFID were explored
• Long-range transponder systems for aircrafts were designed

1960s

• R.F. Harrington studied electromagnetic theory related to RFID
• Inventors began to use radio frequency technology to devices in market beyond military purpose
• Electronic Article Surveillance,  a simple and affordable equipment used to counter theft was developed
• “1-bit tags” meant that Electronic Article Survelliance systems could detect only the presence or absence of the tag
• The first and till date, most popular use of RFID technology is represented by Electronic Article Survelliance

1970s

• Researchers including academic institutions, government laboratories  and companies began to work hard on the development of RFID technology
• Electronic toll collection, animal and vehicle tracking, and factory automation were the aim behind the hard work
• The first U.S patent was received by Mario W. Cardullo on January 23, 1973  for an active RFID tag

1980s

• RFID technology were implemented fully
• Europe and U.S applied the RFID system in transportation, business applications and animal tracking

1990s

• RFID was used widespread
• Companies and consumers began to use RFID widely around the globe
• RFID was used to keep traffic flowing at toll collection system in 1992 at Houston, Texas

2000s

• RFID enhancement
• The cost of RFID began to decline
• RFID began to be used in official documents like Passports
• From 2005 RFID technologies are widely used in almost all industrial

 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth