Technology giant Apple has snapped up Coherent Navigation, a specialist in high-precision GPS services, for an undisclosed amount as it seeks to bolster its Apple Maps service.
Founded in 2008 by William Bencze, a former programme manager of spacecraft…
Technology giant Apple has snapped up Coherent Navigation, a specialist in high-precision GPS services, for an undisclosed amount as it seeks to bolster its Apple Maps service.
Founded in 2008 by William Bencze, a former programme manager of spacecraft mission operations at Stanford University, and location software engineer Brent Ledvina, Coherent Navigation has been developing a commercial high-precision navigation service, iGPS, which combines signals from the GPS constellation with those from Iridium’s LEO network.
The idea of iGPS, or high-integrity GPS, has been around for more than ten years with Boeing having pitched the plan to the US government back in 2005. The idea was to reprogram the Iridium constellation to bolster the GPS system’s navigation and timing signals. The intention was to provide superior accuracy to within centimetres rather than metres, greater signal integrity as well as jamming protection.
In 2008, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) awarded a three-year US$153m contract to Boeing to develop both the software required for the Iridium satellites and the necessary ground infrastructure to support iGPS. Boeing had been working with Coherent Navigation on the project.
For Apple, the acquisition is part of its ongoing strategy to improve Apple Maps. It has made a number of bolt-on acquisitions to support this including five deals in 2013 alone. These were indoor location firm WiFiSlam, location database provider Locationary, online city transit location services companies HopStop and Embark and GIS services businesses BroadMap.
Meanwhile, on 18 May Dutch satellite navigation device maker TomTom said that it had renewed and extended its global agreement with Apple for maps and related information.
