Avwatch announced that they’ve licensed ATAK for public safety support, service and training.
PLYMOUTH, MA, (NOVEMBER 2015) – Avwatch, Inc. (Avwatch) has been awarded a civilian license for the business use of a high-tech app, developed by the military, for applications that include first responder, emergency management and environmental protection.
Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Rome, New York, the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK™) is an Android situational awareness application originally designed for U.S. Special Operations Forces. The application, which runs on Android cell phones and tablets as well as in a Chrome browser, provides the ability to securely share live video, position information, text chat, photos, KML and other geospatial collaborative information on an interactive, moving map. Avwatch is among the first private enterprises granted the right to use this app. The civilian version of the app is known as TAK-C. It was created to meet the needs of Federal, state, local and non-government law enforcement, emergency response, and other public safety organizations. The Android application delivers real-time situational awareness across all levels of an organization from senior leaders to supervisors and responders in the field. TAK-C provides decision makers with critical information in real-time, enabling them to make better decisions, increase operational effectiveness and improve response times and enhance responder safety.
TAK-C will benefit a wide variety of organizations such as first responders, emergency management, environmental protection, and non-profit organizations supporting public safety. TAK-C has been proven effective in incident management, site surveying, multi-agency collaboration, unmanned systems operations, environmental assessments, and special event coordination in numerous domains.
Avwatch has specifically used TAK-C in support of numerous operations across public and private sectors nationwide, including response coordination during the 2015 Boston Marathon, tracking vessels and boom deployment for an oil spill exercise in Buzzards Bay, streaming real-time video for border security initiatives, and sharing location information of firefighters during wildfire responses.
When speaking of TAK-C and its capabilities, Chris Kluckhuhn, Founder and CEO of Avwatch, said “TAK-C incorporates more than a decade of lessons learned from operations overseas, hurricanes, oil spills, wild fire responses, and day to day operational requirements into a simple application that provides responders in the field the same level of situational awareness in the palm of their hand that traditionally only exists in a fully operational command center.” The application provides a team of teams approach which provides a secure framework to bridge multiple stakeholders into a unified operating environment.Avwatch will offer secure annual subscriptions to customers’ private or federated TAK-C networks. In addition, Avwatch will offer TAK-C training at the customer’s location or at Avwatch’s state-of-the-art facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts. For further information please contact tak-c@avwatch.us.
