Charles Walton
Charles Walton was an American inventor and former IBM engineer who patented a portable radio frequency emitting identifier in 1973, an early form of RFID, and founded Proximity Devices.
What they did and why it matters
Walton's early RFID patents laid the groundwork for tags that identify items without line-of-sight scanning, which retailers and warehouses now use to count inventory quickly. His 1973 patent described a passive transponder that could unlock a door when a card was near a reader, and his company licensed the technology for access control. Later RFID standards let apparel retailers and distribution centers read hundreds of tagged items at once at receiving or in cycle counts. Operators weighing RFID against barcodes look at tag cost per unit against faster counts and better inventory accuracy.
Related people
Events
Sources
- Charles Walton (inventor) (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
- Charles Walton, father of RFID technology, dies at 89 (Engadget) engadget.com