Who invented GPS (Global Positioning System)?

Ivan Getting, 1974

The latest ‘must have’ for your car is a talking roadmap, sitting on your dashboard. From time to time a gentle voice tells you what turn to take to reach your destination. This would be impossible without the Global positioning system (GPS), another achievement of the space age. The Godfather of GPS was Ivan Getting, a research engineer at Raytheon Corporation, which bad been very active in pioneering wartime radar and the first microwave ovens. The first customer was the US military. A new generation of guided missiles was to be fired from railway wagons to achieve security from attack through being moved about. Their handlers needed to know precisely where their weapon was at the time of launch so it could be directed accurately to its target.

During World War II, Getting proposed a network to radio transmitters, each with a precise clock. A receiver at the missile launch site, with a similar clock, would pick up several transmissions simultaneously. By noting how long each signal took to arrive, the missiles’ minders could calculate the missiles’ distance from each of the transmitters and hence their location.

Usage of GPS:

In today’s GPS, the radio transmitters are circling the Earth 20000 kilometers up in precisely known orbits. More than 20 such satellites are aloft at any one time. A GPS receiver uses transmissions from three or four satellites to calculate its position in three dimensions, accurate to a few meters. It is an astounding capability.

The USA launched the first GPS satellites in 1974. For a decade, only their military could use them; civilians gained access in the 1990s. Defense authorizes now access an enhanced system that reputedly provides positions to the nearest centimeter, and is used to guide smart bombs and missiles. The systems cost about $ billion to develop and nearly $1 billion a year to operate and maintain. However, economic benefits are piling up, especially from greater accuracy and safety of navigation of ships, planes and even land craft.