Team Awareness Kit

Situational awareness tool for teams

Team Awareness Kit

The Sawmill FTX will require the use of the Team Awareness Kit by competitors.

What is the Team Awareness Kit (TAK)?

TAK is an app that runs on a smartphone or Android device. TAK is a “super app” that integrates several functions that are useful for teams into one coherent application. The picture above is a screenshot from TAK running on my iPhone.

The most important function in TAK is team situational awareness but TAK does many other things as well. TAK does online and offline mapping. It supports collaborative mapping. You can mark locations with TAK. You can chat, share files, share pictures, and share videos. You can use TAK to navigate, though we will specifically not use that function during the FTX.

What is “team awareness?”

Team awareness is situational awareness for you and members of your team. That means that you know (or can find out anytime you like) what is going on with your team. You can instantly see team member location, status, history, locations of interest, and more.

For FTX, we will be tracking competitors in the land navigation course and in the hostage rescue scenario. We will be tracking to ensure route compliance and to validate land navigation achievement. During the hostage rescue scenario, route compliance is a safety issue.

Who can use TAK?

Search and rescue teams can use TAK to keep track of all the searchers and to record areas as they are searched. Fire fighters can use TAK to stay aware of where everyone is and the status of the emergency for each fire fighter. Law enforcement can use TAK to stay aware of the situation with each officer.

Competitions (like FTX) can use TAK to keep track of the location of each competitor. Hunters can use TAK to stay aware of other hunters in their group.

Prepared civilians can use TAK (with a radio network) to monitor the situational status of group members.

TAK provides real-time situational awareness across the team.

How Does It Work

TAK is an app that runs on an Android or IOS device. It connects with a TAK server to share your location with the other team members. The server provides a gateway for access to maps, overlays, and data.

You can set up a TAK server yourself or you can work with a company that provides a TAK server as a service. VK Integrated Systems ( https://vkintsys.com/ ) is an example of a company that provides TAK servers as a service.

Below you can see a simplistic view of the setup for a TAK server providing resources to a team. In this picture, the team TAK devices are shown at the bottom. They connect to the TAK server through WIFI, cellular connections, or a radio network. The TAK server enables the connection between the team’s TAK devices.

The server provides resources like routes, maps, visualizations, or the current situation at a location of interest (like an automobile accident). The server also keeps track of all team member locations and makes those available to other team members.

You can learn much more about TAK servers at https://tak.gov/

Summary

We will use a subset of TAK functions at FTX. We are using primarily the location and route tracking capabilities to validate land navigation achievement and to ensure route compliance for safety during the hostage rescue scenario.

Register

Sawmill FTX — https://practiscore.com/sawmill-ftx-january-7-2024/register

Trainup — https://practiscore.com/sawmill-land-navigation-and-medical-trainup-4-january-2024/register

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