The Beginnings Of RFID Technology

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British fighter from WW2. Hawker Hurricane cockpit

British fighter from WW2. Hawker Hurricane cockpit

RFID technology may seem to be new. As a merchant you may have equipment that allows you to receive payments using it. You have probably never thought about how the technology came about. We’ve detailed how the magnetic strip was devised and even how the credit card came to be before but did you know that RFID technology is even older?

The Beginning

It is 1938 in Great Britain. Robert Watson-Watt’s new technology called radar is being installed along the coastline of the English Channel. Why? War with Germany seems inevitable. Watson-Watt’s radar will help aid the RAF in spotting incoming raids of enemy planes by giving the Royal Air Force valuable time to get in the air to intercept them. That is of course a great advantage but what will happen when RAF planes head into Europe? How will radar operators in England know that the planes coming are British (or an ally like France) or their enemy?

That is what the researchers at Bawdsey Manor wanted to figure out. By being able to determine if the blip on the radar screen was friend or foe they could save valuable fuel and not alarm the pilots, allowing them valuable time to rest and eat. Their solution was to install an antenna on the plane that would resonate at the frequency of the radar beam and return to the receiver with more energy, thus identifying a friendly aircraft. A good first effort, but the system would only work if the airplane was traveling in a certain direction relative to the radar station.

The next plan was to install tracking stations using radio direction finders. The radios in the aircraft were set to send out a tone every 14 seconds, which would allow the stations to measure the bearing of the aircraft. Several stations would be used to triangulate the signal by receiving what became known as the pip-squeak. This solution was effective but it required a lot of labor to make it work.

The Birth Of RFID

The solution was tested on the eve of war. In 1939 a regenerative receiver was used to feed a small amount of amplified output back to the radar station using the antenna installed on the aircraft. The signal would be received at the same time by the radar station but would (in theory) be more intense, thereby identifying the aircraft as friendly. The problem was that at times the blip would either be too strong or would not be seen at all. The systems also used different radio frequencies. To overcome this each pilot carried a card with them that listed the different frequencies but if they were unable to change frequencies as they changed areas (like if they were in a dogfight) or simply lost, this did them little good.

An improved version took care of many of those issues but the system could not be implemented fully in time for the Battle of Britain. While the RAF managed to hold off the Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffe was far from defeated so the system was still needed. A later version of the technology developed in 1940 used a single frequency and this became the standard unit used throughout most of the remainder of the war. The transponder units in the plane were so valuable that they were even fitted with a self-destruct mechanism to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Unfortunately the switch was right next to the switch to turn the unit on and off and many a pilot accidentally destroyed their unit.

The technology has of course been improved and it is still in use with radar today, albeit in a much more sophisticated manner. But this technology has been used in other areas, like to restrict access to areas, pay tolls and in payment options that you might have on your counter. Did you know that RFID helped to save the free world? Think about that the next time a customer makes a payment using that technology.