Did you know that a Black Woman named Gladys West helped Develop the GPS Technology?

Global Positioning System (GPS) has become a very important tool in the world today and when it comes to technology, it can hardly be done away with. Looking at its inclusion is cars, mobile phones, airplanes, and a whole lot more.

There have been questions as to who invented the GPS, there have been lots of uncertainties as to who can be credited as the inventor of GPS, a system that has been widely accepted and helped to solve a lot of problems.

Who invented GPS?

Though it has been difficult to link the invention of GPS to one person, there have been links with a group of four people who are said to have been associated with its invention.

They are;

-         Roger L. Easton.

-         Bradford Parkinson.

-         Ivan Getting.

-         Gladys West.

Dr. Gladys West who has been acknowledged for her work in developing the GPS is a mathematician by education who worked with the United States Naval Weapons Laboratory.

Gwen James who happens to be West’s sorority sister discovered the contribution made by West in developing the GPS technology and shared it with the Associated Press saying that “GPS has changed the lives of everyone forever. There is not a segment of this global society—military, auto industry, cell phone industry, social media, parents, NASA, etc.—that does not utilize the Global Positioning System.” She further added that the story of Gladys West is amazing.

In 1956, West became the second black woman to join the Dahlgren, Virginia, Naval base. She was one of just four blacks who were employed at that time. While she worked there, she was able to get data for locations from orbiting machines and make use of the data on supercomputers, analyzing surface elevations while making use of early computer software.

West worked tirelessly on calculations that were complex and also worked on recording satellite locations. According to West, the opportunity to work with some of the greatest scientists made her feel ecstatic, she told AP.

A former officer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Captain Godfrey Weekes commended the works of Gladys West a few years back when he wrote about Black History month, he said, “She rose through the ranks, worked on the satellite geodesy (the science that measures the size and shape of Earth) and contributed to the accuracy of GPS and the measurement of satellite data. As Gladys West started her career as a mathematician at Dahlgren in 1956, she likely had no idea that her work would impact the world for decades to come.”

With her work being largely recognized and having made much impact in the world today, Gladys West was inducted into the United States Air force Hall of Fame, in December 2018.

She didn’t have any idea that her work would come this far and make much impact, as she said “When you’re working every day, you’re not thinking, what impact is this going to have on the world? You're thinking, I've got to get this right.”