Signal Magazine has a great article on ATAK from the TAK Product Center’s perspective. It cites ATAK’s use in numerous past events which haven’t been widely and publicly acknowledged previously, and some ambitious plans for the future, including integration with Machine Learning, integration with the Next-Gen Combat Vehicle, additional unmanned systems and multi-domain operations. The article aslo talks about an upcoming iTAK verson (though the article talks about iTAK as though it is current).
Here’s some details on ATAK’s official past:
The Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) is a map-based software application that enables coordination among thousands of users with features such as a position data, chat, mission planning and shared overlays. It is compatible with Android, Apple iOS and Windows. The Air Force, FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Park Police and Special Operations Forces are among the organizations that have customized it for their own purposes.
It has been integrated into 15 Defense Department programs of record, and it has been used for military offenses in Ramadi and Mosul and for homeland security during the last presidential inauguration, the State of the Union address, the United Nations General Assembly, the Republican and Democratic national conventions and a visit from Pope Francis. It is now being adapted to provide COVID-19 data to National Guard units and government agencies.
Additionally, the nonmilitary variant for federal and government agencies, known as the Android Team Awareness Kit-Civilian (ATAK-CIV) application, is available on Google Play and the open-source Standard ATAK Software Development Kit on TAKmaps.com. Army officials describe TAK as an extensible platform, meaning that the TAK Product Center within the Army’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center provides a baseline for others to build upon so that they can tailor it to their own missions. And, it has ignited an explosion of small businesses selling different versions of the system.
But TAK’s best days may be ahead. … (7 more paragraphs follow).
The whole article is worth reading for TAK aficianados.
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