Elmer Ambrose Sperry was an American engineer who founded the Sperry Gyroscope Company in Brooklyn in 1910 to commercialize gyroscopic navigation instruments. His central invention, the gyrocompass, used a spinning gyroscope to indicate true north independent of magnetic interference, and he developed it a few years after German inventor Hermann Anschutz-Kaempfe patented a rival design, leading to years of patent litigation between the two men. Sperry went on to apply gyroscopic principles to stabilize ships and aircraft and to build early aircraft flight instruments, including a turn-and-slip indicator, as well as naval fire-control systems. He won the Collier Trophy twice, in 1914 and 1916, received the Franklin Institute's Franklin Medal in 1914 and the John Fritz Medal in 1927, and is remembered as a founding figure of modern navigation technology; the Institute of Electrical Engineers' Elmer A. Sperry Award, established after his death, continues to recognize major advances in transportation engineering.
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Source Elmer Ambrose Sperry (Wikipedia)
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Gyrocompass, Inventions Why this is disputed. Patented a competing gyrocompass design in 1908, two years after Hermann Anschutz-Kaempfe built the first workable gyrocompass in 1906.
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1. Elmer Ambrose Sperry (Wikipedia)
Infobox, birth_date
1860-10-12
Infobox, death_date
1930-06-16
Extract, first sentence
October 12, 1860
Extract, first sentence [death-year]
June 16, 1930
Extract, first sentence [nationality]
American inventor and entrepreneur
In Field: Mechanical Engineering, Categories
19th-century American mechanical engineers
View the SourceFrequently Asked Questions
Why did Elmer Sperry face patent litigation over the gyrocompass?
He developed his gyrocompass after Anschutz-Kaempfe patented a rival design, leading to years of litigation.
Sperry's central invention was the gyrocompass, which uses a spinning gyroscope to indicate true north independent of magnetic interference. He developed it a few years after German inventor Hermann Anschutz-Kaempfe patented a rival design, which led to years of patent litigation between the two men.
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