The first precession electron diffraction system was developed by Vincent and Midgley in Bristol, UK and published in 1994. Preliminary investigation into the ErGeO crystal structure demonstrated the feasibility of the technique at reducing dynamical effects and providing quasi-kinematical patterns that could be solved through direct methods to determine crystal structure.  Over the next ten years, a number of university groups developed their own precession systems and verified the technique by solving complex crystal structures, including the groups of J. Gjønnes (Oslo), Migliori (Bologna), and L. Marks (Northwestern).
In 2004, [http://nanomegas.com/ NanoMEGAS] developed the first commercial precession system capable of being retrofit to any modern TEM. This hardware solution enabled more widespread implementation of the technique and spurred its more mainstream adoption into the crystallography community. Software methods have also been developed to achieve the necessary scanning and descanning using the built-in electronics of the TEM. HREM Research Inc has developed the [http://www.hremresearch.com/index.html QED plug-in] for the DigitalMicrograph software. This plug-in enables the widely used software package to collect precession electron diffraction patterns without additional modifications to the microscope.
According to NanoMEGAS, as of June, 2015, more than 200 publications have relied on the technique to solve or corroborate crystal structures; many on materials that could not be solved by other conventional crystallography techniques like x-ray diffraction. Their retrofit hardware system is used in more than 75 laboratories across the world.