Bill Polhemus
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William Leroy Polhemus, known as Bill Polhemus, was an innovator in 3D tracking technology and a military veteran. He was the founder of Polhemus, at the time known as Polhemus Associates Inc. and later, Polhemus Navigation Sciences. Also, Polhemus Labs, a separate company.
He developed a magnetic tracking system at Harvard University in the 1960s.
Biography[edit]
Bill Polhemus was born in New York in 1924. His father was Leroy Polhemus.[1]
He was called to active military service in autumn 1941 while in his senior year of high school. He spent the next nine years in the U.S. Navy and the following 12 years in the U.S. Air Force. He was promoted to first lieutenant in the Air Force in 1954. In the Air Force he flew 64 combat missions as a navigator.[2]
Bill Polhemus became a captain in the Air Force.[3] He served 22 years on active duty in the military, including in WWII and the Korean War.[4]
He was the president of the Institute of Navigation.[4]
He was on the board of directors of the Wild Goose Association.[5]
He worked on LORAN technology.[6]
Bill Polhemus passed away in 1998.[2]
[edit]
Polhemus Navigation Sciences was purchased by an outside company in the 1970s and Bill Polhemus was retired by the new management in about 1977.[7]
References[edit]
- ↑ "William Leroy Polhemus". 2021-06-15. https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/william-leroy-polhemus-24-1lcxzch.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Obituary for WILLIAM L. POLHEMUS, 1924-1998 (Aged 74), Burlington, Vermont, 1998-09-18, p. 16, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-burlington-free-press-obituary-for-w/38207894/, retrieved 2026-03-21
- ↑ Polhemus, William L. (1960-06-09). "Navigating the Supersonic B-58". Navigation 7 (2-3): 127–139. doi:10.1002/j.2161-4296.1960.tb02448.x.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Forum/Forum_Archives/200203.txt
- ↑ "Wild Goose Association Radionavigation Journal 1978". https://web.archive.org/web/20170611025804if_/http://loran.org/journal/1978-Journal.pdf.
- ↑ "Sole Means Navigation and Integrity Through Hybrid LORAN-C and Navstar GPS". https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42824235.pdf.
- ↑ ISBN 978-1500893293 Page 381
- "First Annual FAA General Aviation Forecast Conference Proceedings". March 1991. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA248076.pdf.
- "History of Motion Capture". http://www.motioncapturesociety.com/resources/industry-history. "1960s Bill Polhemus at Harvard University, magnetic tracker"
- "File:GPO-CRECB-1954-pt1-3-1.pdf". 2026-08-09. https://www.xvrwiki.org/wiki/File:GPO-CRECB-1954-pt1-3-1.pdf.