Polhemus

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Polhemus logo
A Patriot system from Polhemus
Polhemus early system with VPL headset

Polhemus is an American company that makes electromagnetic 3D tracking systems. Their products that have high precision. Polhemus' tracking systems were used in some of the first virtual reality systems. The trackers can be found in medical and flight simulator applications. Examples of their products are the Viper line and the Polhemus Patriot.

Polhemus owned the 3space brand in the 1980s and 1990s.

Polhemus' products include the Fastrak line. Polhemus' systems are comprised of a system electronics unit (SEU), a source, and at least one sensor. The SEU connects to a computer and plugs in to the source(s) and sensors.

Polhemus has filed patents on magnetic tracking technology. As of August 2025, most of Polhemus' patents have expired.

Polhemus systems were used by VPL. The company is named after Bill Polhemus. Polhemus' corporate name is Alken, Inc. and is incorporated in Vermont.[1][2]

Products[edit]

A Polhemus "Long Ranger"

Lineage[edit]

Polhemus was started by William Polhemus as Polhemus Associates in 1964.[5] It was founded in Michigan. Polhemus Associates did research on how to track objects' position and orientation in a three-dimensional space.[5]

The company moved to Vermont in 1969, and began focusing on hardware. In 1970, Polhemus worked with Northrop Corporation, and then changed their name to Polhemus Navigation Sciences, and incorporated in Vermont.[5][6][7]

Polhemus developed magnetic tracking for tracking a pilot's helmet for use with a head-up display. Polhemus received Air Force contracts in the early 1970s.[5] It faced financial difficulty by late 1973, and the company or its product rights were sold to the Austin Company, which was a conglomerate based in Cleveland, Ohio.[5]

The company was sold to McDonnell Douglas. It was called the Polhemus Navigation Sciences division of McDonnell Douglas.[8]

Two employees left in 1986 and founded Ascension.[5]

Polhemus was sold to Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics in 1988.[5]

In 1996 and 1997, Philip G. Cooper was the President of Polhemus.[6][9][10]

In 1996, Polhemus was a subsidiary of Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics.[9]

Polhemus's corporate name is Alken, Inc.[1][2] Alken, Inc. was incorporated in Vermont in 2002.[11]

Patents[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Corporations Division". https://bizfilings.vermont.gov/online/BusinessInquire/TradeNameInformation?businessID=251741.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Patriot User Manual November 2004". http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~moose/mhs/trunk/PolhemusActiveXControl/polhemus/Patriot/PATRIOT%20Manual.pdf.
  3. ↑ "Polhemus All Trackers". https://polhemus.com/motion-tracking/all-trackers/.
  4. ↑ "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140519if_/http://www.polhemus.com/ourprod.htm.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Carlson, Wayne E. (2017-06-20). "17.4 Interaction". The Ohio State University. https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/graphicshistory/chapter/1-4-interaction/.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140351if_/http://www.polhemus.com/aboutpol.htm.
  7. ↑ Cruz-Neira, Carolina; Sandin, Dan; DeFanti, Tom; Other, Along With. "Section 17: Virtual Reality". https://web.archive.org/web/20120213214810if_/http://excelsior.biosci.ohio-state.edu:80/~carlson/history/lesson17.html.
  8. ↑ https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/167962.165918
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Press Release: 1996-08-05: Sega Selects Polhemus to Develop Next Generation Motion Capture System". 2019-07-20. https://segaretro.org/Press_Release:_1996-08-05:_Sega_Selects_Polhemus_to_Develop_Next_Generation_Motion_Capture_System.
  10. ↑ "Polhemus Press Releases". 1997-05-22. http://www.polhemus.com/pressrel.htm#sega96.
  11. ↑ "Corporations Division". https://bizfilings.vermont.gov/online/BusinessInquire/BusinessInformation?businessID=123354.
  12. ↑ "Method and apparatus for determining electromagnetic field characteristics within a volume". 1998-12-17. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6377041B1/.
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