In what may be an effort to improve the location technology behind Apple Maps, Apple has acquired Coherent Navigation, Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area-based Global Positioning System (GPS) specialist firm, for an undisclosed amount.

The Coherent Navigation acquisition, first reported by MacRumors in the early hours of Sunday morning, was later confirmed by Apple in an email to The New York Times with the Cupertino giant’s standard confirmation statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Coherent worked on High Integrity GPS

Founded in 2008, Coherent Navigation, in partnership with companies like Iridium Satellite, LLC and The Boeing Co., worked on High Integrity GPS – or iGPS as it’s known in government circles – systems that, by combining signals from mid-earth orbit GPS satellites used for navigation and low-earth orbit communications satellites, provides iGPS receivers with more precise and accurate information, delivers higher signal integrity and makes them more jam-resistant.

High Integrity GPS, claimed Iridium in a press release, “has the potential to provide geographic positioning data to within centimeters, a vast improvement over current standalone GPS, which provides data within meters.”

It is unclear when exactly Apple completed the acquisition of Coherent Navigation. The company’s website redirects to an Apple domain, and, according to his LinkedIn profile, Paul Lego, Coherent Navigation’s former CEO, joined the Apple Maps team January. Co-founders William Bencze and Brett Ledvina joined the iPhone maker last month, according to their individual LinkedIn profiles.

Will the acquisition help improve Apple Maps?

As the details around the deal are not public, it remains to be seen what – if any – of Coherent Navigation’s technology is incorporated into future Apple products. It is also possible that Apple acquired the company for the talent of its employees; however, that also remains vague, as it is not known what specific projects they are now working on within Apple.

It is not unlikely that Apple has acquired Coherent Navigation to help improve Apple Maps, its competitor to Google Maps. Recent figures released by ComScore show that Google Maps is still used by almost twice as many iPhone users than those using Apple Maps.

In recent years, Apple has acquired a number of companies active in the mapping space, including Pin Drop, Locationary, WiFiSLAM, Hopstop, Embark and Broadmap.

Screenshot: SiliconANGLE via apple.com