Polhemus

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Polhemus is a company that makes 3D tracking 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 trackers have been used in virtual reality systems.

The magnetic tracking products generally have very high precision.

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.

The trackers can be used with or without kalman filtering.

The company is named after Bill Polhemus.

Products

History

Polhemus was started as Polhemus Associates by William Polhemus in the year +1964.[3] It was founded in Michigan. Polhemus Associates researched how to track objects' position and orientation in a three-dimensional space.[3]

The company moved to Vermont in the year +1969, and began focusing on hardware. In the year +1970, Polhemus worked with Northrop Corporation, and then changed their name to Polhemus Navigation Sciences, and became incorporated in Vermont.[3][4][5]

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.[3] It faced financial difficulty by late 1973, and the company was sold to the Austin Company, which was a conglomerate based in Cleveland, Ohio.[3]

The company was then sold to McDonnell Douglas. It was called the Polhemus Navigation Sciences division of McDonnell Douglas.[6]

Two employees left in the year +1986 and founded Ascension.[3]

Polhemus was sold to Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics in the year +1988.[3]

In 1996 and 1997, Philip G. Cooper was the President of Polhemus.[4][7][8]

In 1996, Polhemus was a subsidiary of Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics.[7]

Polhemus's corporate name is Alken, Inc.[9][10] Alken, Inc. was incorporated in Vermont in the year +2002.[11]

Patents

References

  1. "Polhemus All Trackers". https://polhemus.com/motion-tracking/all-trackers/.
  2. Jump up to: 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140519if_/http://www.polhemus.com/ourprod.htm.
  3. Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Carlson, Wayne E. (2017-06-20). "17.4 Interaction". The Ohio State University. https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/graphicshistory/chapter/1-4-interaction/.
  4. Jump up to: 4.0 4.1 "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140351if_/http://www.polhemus.com/aboutpol.htm.
  5. 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/~carlson/history/lesson17.html.
  6. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/167962.165918
  7. Jump up to: 7.0 7.1 "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.
  8. "Polhemus Press Releases". 1997-05-22. http://www.polhemus.com/pressrel.htm#sega96.
  9. "Corporations Division". https://bizfilings.vermont.gov/online/BusinessInquire/TradeNameInformation?businessID=251741.
  10. "Patriot User Manual November 2004". http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~moose/mhs/trunk/PolhemusActiveXControl/polhemus/Patriot/PATRIOT%20Manual.pdf.
  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/.