Elmer Sperry

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.