Transponder Timing - History

History

RFID was first used in the late 1980s primarily for motor racing and became more widely adopted in athletic events in the mid-1990s on release of low cost 134 kHz transponders and readers from Texas Instruments. This technology formed the basis of electronic sports timing for the world's largest running events as well as for cycling, triathlon and skiing. Some manufacturers made improvements to the technology to handle larger numbers of transponders in the read field or improve the tolerance of their systems to low frequency noise. These low frequency systems are still used a lot today. Other manufacturers developed their own proprietary RFID systems usually as an off-shoot to more industrial applications. These latter systems attempted to get around the problem of reading large numbers of transponders in a read field by using the High Frequency 13.56 MHz RFID methodology that allowed transponders to use anti-collision algorithms to avoid tags interfering with each other's signal during the down-link between transponder and reader. Active transponder systems continued to mature and despite their much higher cost they retained market share in the high speed sports like motor racing, cycling and ice skating. Active systems are also used at high profile events such as the Olympics due to their very high read rates and time-stamping precision.

By 2005 a newer RFID technology was becoming available, mostly for industrial applications. The first and second generation (UHF) transponders and readers that were being developed followed a strict protocol to ensure that multiple transponders and readers could be used between manufacturers. Much like the HF tags, the UHF tags were much cheaper to produce in volume and formed the basis in the next revolution in sports timing. Currently many of the largest athletic events are timed using disposable transponders either placed on the back of a race number bib or on the runners shoe. The low cost meant that transponders were now fully disposable and did not need to be returned to the organizers after the event.