As a child packed among other terrified German citizens in World War II鈥檚 Frankfurt bomb shelters, Hugo Fruehauf (MBA 鈥�07, PKE 117) discovered that keeping occupied was a way to cope with a confusing, frightening world.
鈥淭hey called me Beaver,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ecause I was always busy, building something with blocks or an erector set and taking things apart to see how they worked.鈥�
This penchant for creating new things, and the horror of carpet- bombing鈥攖he wartime practice of bombarding an enemy鈥檚 civilian structures along with military targets鈥攈ave stayed with Fruehauf throughout his life. He has used both passions to dramatically change the world.
Fruehauf is one of four recipients of the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for the creation of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Often referred to as the missing Nobel Prize for engineering, the prize is awarded to an individual or team whose groundbreaking innovation in engineering has had a global impact on humanity. Fruehauf鈥檚 contribution to the system was critical to its success.
For satellites to convey accurate positioning data, they must keep precision time, and the most precise timekeeping device known to man is the atomic clock. Fruehauf describes an atomic clock as one that 鈥渂asically uses atoms as a pendulum.鈥� By exciting the electrons circling the atoms鈥� centers, they are compelled to switch their magnetic dipoles, acting like a pendulum. The first atomic clock, 鈥渁s big as a refrigerator,鈥� was built in the 1930s, before Fruehauf moved to the US at age 13. By the 1960s, the devices were about the size of a microwave oven, but they were still far too large and heavy to send into orbit.
Fruehauf was then employed as an engineer with North American Rockwell. His knack
for being in the right place at the right time, along with having exceptional circuit
design skills, had given him the opportunity to become chief test conductor for the
second stage of the Apollo, Saturn-V launch vehicle while only in his 20s. The following
decade, the US military contracted with the renamed Rockwell International to create
a satellite-based positioning system for all its secure needs. One of Fruehauf鈥檚 tasks
in this effort鈥攖o miniaturize the clock such a system required鈥攕eemed impossible.
When he learned of a German scientist, Ernst Jechart, living nearby in Southern California
who had done exactly that, he didn鈥檛 believe it.
鈥淚t was almost as if God had designed it and had put me on its trail,鈥� he says.
As a native German speaker with a knowledge of large atomic clocks, Fruehauf had the language skills to understand the inventor鈥檚 creation. With this four-by-four-by-four-inch clock as their prototype, Jechart and he set to work. They redesigned it for survival in orbit environments and thus created the first fully radiation-hardened, military atomic clock in space鈥攁 central feature of GPS technology.
For the first 20 years of their existence, GPS signals were fully operational for use by the military. During the first Gulf War, the military relied heavily on GPS receivers for navigation and for precision targeting of Iraqi forces. The open, unencrypted civil signal, however, was deliberately degraded to render it sufficiently inaccurate for terrorists to use in precision counterattacks. By 2000, President Clinton felt that the global benefit of the unencrypted signal outweighed fears of its abuse, and that year he gave the world access to a precise, open, commercial signal. As Fruehauf points out, this new navigation signal, coupled with advances in the cell phone industry, put GPS on the map.
鈥淕PS receivers are now the size of the fingernail on your pinky, and they only cost two dollars,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his is what helped blow GPS into the world.鈥� Today鈥檚 finely tuned GPS that instructs us what alternative route to use during a traffic jam relies on an open signal that is about as good as it can be. Jokingly, Fruehauf says, 鈥淲e鈥檙e pretty much at the place where God keeps time.鈥�
Fruehauf sees 鈥渆ndless uses鈥� for the technology and it now touches us in myriad ways. We use it to locate lost hikers and to more quickly land planes at airports, and as Fruehauf hoped, it has eliminated the practice of carpet-bombing in military conflicts. It鈥檚 also been a boon to farmers. Fruehauf explains that 鈥渂y using GPS as a tractor navigator, along with a small tower鈥檚 correction signals, a tractor can harvest or seed a field in tracts accurate to an inch. The result is a 10 to 20 percent higher land use and yield.鈥�
Receiving the Queen Elizabeth Prize is a testament to the remarkable nature of the GPS inventors鈥� achievement, and there is no doubt that Fruehauf鈥檚 tenacious character played a role in it. 鈥淢y claim to fame is that when I think something is possible, even if I don鈥檛 know how to do it, I go for it,鈥� he says. Nonetheless, he is keenly aware of the almost divine serendipity at play in his life. 鈥淚 was very much at the right place at the right time. There is some miraculous element about this that I enjoy more than the accolades I get.鈥�
Along with three colleagues, alumnus Hugo Fruehauf received the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering for his work on the American Global Positioning System.
GPS in Service
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Predicts earthquakes by tracking tectonic plate movement
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Guides humanitarian supplies into disaster relief zones
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Helps the environment by locating plastic in the ocean
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Finds and rescues ships in distress
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Enables precision farming with satellite-guided tractors