when did rfid start

August 23, 2025

when did rfid start proposal! when did rfid start official support.GOV,when did rfid start active! Of course. Here is a detailed article on the origins iphone rfid card evolution of RFID technology.


***


### **The History of RFID: Tracing the Origins of a Transformative Technology**

The question "When did RFID start?" is deceptively simple. Unlike a single eureka moment, the story of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) is a fascinating tapestry woven over decades, involving wartime innovation, scientific curiosity, and commercial evolution. It is a journey that begins not with a commercial barcode replacement, but with the urgent need for an advantage in global conflict.

#### **H1: The Conceptual Seeds: Early 20th Century Pioneers (The 1920s - 1940s)**

While the practical technology we know today came later, the fundamental principles of RFID were first explored in the early 20th century.

* **There Is No Single Inventor:** It is crucial to understand that RFID wasn't "invented" by one person on a specific date. It evolved from earlier work in radio and radar.
* **The Foundation of Radar:** In the 1920s and 1930s, nations developed radar (Radio Detection and Ranging), which used radio waves to identify and locate distant objects like ships and aircraft. A critical limitation of early radar was that it could not distinguish *which* aircraft it was detecting—friend or foe.
* **The IFF System: The True Birth of RFID:** To solve this problem, the British developed the first operational RFID system in 1935. It was called **IFF**, or **Identification, Friend or Foe**. British researchers, including Sir Robert Watson-Watt, created a transmitter that was placed on Allied aircraft. When these planes received radar signals from ground stations, their transmitters would broadcast a signal back, identifying them as "friendly." This "passive" response to an incoming signal is the core functionality of modern passive RFID tags. This wartime application marks the first genuine, working use of RFID technology.



#### **H2: The Post-War Era: From Theory to Exploration (The 1940s - 1960s)**


After World War II, the scientific community began to explore the non-military potential of radio-frequency technology.

* **Harry Stockman's Landmark Paper (1948):** A pivotal moment in RFID's history was the 1948 paper "Communication by Means of Reflected Power" by Harry Stockman. He explicitly discussed the challenges The Use of RFID for Human Identity Verification