Inventor of Barker code a method for synchronising digital communication to avoid corruption of the data received.

Barker codes continue to play a vital role in modern signal processing and communication technologies, demonstrating the enduring relevance of this mid-20th-century discovery in today’s highly interconnected world.

Examples of applications include radar, mobile phone technology, telemetry, digital speech, ultrasound imaging and testing, GPS, Wi-Fi, radio frequency identification, barcodes, tracking, stock control and vehicle guidance.

His early education years were disrupted by his father's frequent periods of unemployment and moves between Dublin and England to find work as an artist [3] and stained glass window designer.

His mother, a school teacher,[7] assisted in his education and taught him to play the piano and church organ at the Wesleyan Chapel, Birds Hill, Heath.

[2] As a result of being raised in a poor household, Roy throughout his life, preferred to construct his own gadgets, often from scrap materials using his own ingenuity.

Scientists were declared to be a reserved occupation, which meant that he was not eligible for conscription thereby allowing him to pursue electronic research in his career.

Barker joined Standard Telephones and Cables (STC), North Woolwich, London in 1938 to work in their thermionic valve department, designing dental X-ray tubes and equipment.

[8] After a bombing raid over Woolwich in 1941, Roy resigned from STC, as he felt that his work on X-ray tubes [9] did not contribute to the war effort and returned to Heath and Reach where he met his future wife to be Wendy Emily Hunt [6] who was visiting one of her brothers billeted at Stockgrove Country Park near-by.

[10] Barker was promoted to a Principal Scientific Officer becoming responsible for devising, developing and producing the first British telemetry system for guided weapons.

[15] The first experimental system was named LOPGAP, an acronym of Liquid Oxygen Propelled Guided Anti-aircraft Projectile.

[17] In 1946, Barker attended the first International Telemetering Symposium at Princeton University, New Jersey when he read a paper describing his guidance system.

[19] Barker also worked on aerial design to improve telemetry, writing two articles on the subject, one published in Wireless Engineer in November 1948.

At the end of the war, Barker was appointed as a senior scientific officer to research speech cryptography, which involved work on early computers and digital transmission.

In this paper he states: "The invention is described throughout almost the entire specification in relation to data presented in the form of the angular position of a rotatable shaft but it will be appreciated that the methods and apparatus described are equally applicable to the measurement and recording of the position of a member capable of movement in a linear manner and consequently for a member capable of any conceivable movement".

The patent granted is "Improvements in or relating to apparatus for the representation of data in a binary digital form".

[24] By 1952 his work on digital electronics had been extended to weapons controls,[25] servo systems and communication by pulse-code modulation,[26] for which Barker used the z-transform method for analysis, closely analogous to the Laplace transform.

On completion of the course Barker took a new post as the assistant director of the Directorate of Electronics Research and Development (Air) at the Ministry of Supply headquarters,[13] where he was responsible for the technical administration of research and development in airborne radar, navigation aids, maritime devices and air communications.

Some of the work being undertaken at the laboratories included "Data Transmission Experiment on Land Lines" , "Development of a System of Automatic Load Distribution on the National Grid"; and "Turbine Blade Telemetering".

[45] In 1965 Barker made his last career move, becoming deputy director of the Royal Armament Research Establishment (RARDE) at Fort Halstead, which afforded him the rank of chief experimental officer.