Sure, we're pretty happy that the GPS is a household item these days, but it wouldn't be that was if Roger Easton didn't come up with the idea at the Navy Research Labs. Originally dubbed TIMAITON for Time Navigation, the invention that we now call the GPS, used precise atomic clocks on satellites to help devices on the earth triangulate to their location. The original GPS would fill a room, and now the chips are omnipresent on mobile phones. Not a bad ascendancy into worldwide use.
You can go see his patent for the navigation system at the Patent Office website.
The invention summary is:
"The present invention provides the advantages of the prior earth-satellite navigation systems while avoiding their disadvantages. More specifically, the present invention allows the navigator to passively determine his position by measuring the distance, or range, to one or more satellites. Each satellite transmits multifrequency signals which are derived from extremely precise oscillators. Similar multifrequency signals are derived by the navigator's equipment from an extremely precise oscillator which is phase synchronized with the oscillators on the satellites. By measuring the phase differences between the signals received from the satellites and the locally produced reference signals, the navigator obtains an indication of the distance to the satellites and, therefrom, of his own location. The navigator's presence is not betrayed since no interrogation signal transmission is required. "
Roger Easton is being inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame for this invention. For more on the early days of the GPS, see my Q&A with Bob Rennard, one of the original engineers on the GPS project, and co-founder of TeleNav.
Via CNet
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