RFID in Business - Research Paper Example

This research paper seeks to investigate and explore RFID and its application in business field. The first section of the essay seeks to illustrate and describe RFID. This will be helpful in presenting constructive and significant insight for the reader regarding the introduction and background of RFID. Other sections of the essay offer comprehensive review and analysis concerning the advantages of RFID technology in business field. The usage of RFID is traced back in the early twentieth century when Leon Theremin invented an espionage tool for the Soviet Union.

This device was a passive secret listening device and is considered to be the forerunner of RFID technology (Landt, 8). The roots of radio frequency identification technology can be tracked back to World War II where the usage of radar was common in order to warn of forthcoming planes. An IFF transponder was developed in Britain which also utilized RFID technology in order to identify unidentified aircrafts. Advancements in radar and RD communication systems persisted throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Mario W. Cardullo claims to be the first person who had received a patent for RFID tag with rewritable memory in 1973.

In the same year, Charles Walton obtained a patent for a passive transponder which was used to open a door without using a key (Landt, 9). Los Alamos National Laboratory had also worked on RFID systems in the 1970s. A group of scientists has developed RFID transponder embedded in a truck which was used to identify the driver. This system gained popularity in the 1980s and was installed in entire transportation network. Los Alamos also introduced the passive RFID tags to track cows. IBM engineers had developed RFID system in 1990s and had sold its patents to Intermec which has applied it in several different applications ranging from warehouse tracking to farming.

The concept of low cost RFID tags on all products was experimented in late