07 March 2023

British Army selects TAK for Dismounted Situational Awareness programme

by Olivia Savage

The military version of ATAK has been selected as the BMA of choice for the DSA programme. (ATAK )

The Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) has been selected as the preferred battle management application (BMA) solution for the British Army's Dismounted Situational Awareness (DSA) programme.

Speaking at SAE Media Group's 2023 Future Soldier Technology Conference on 6 March, David Dalby, TacSys Delivery Team Soldier Systems Portfolio lead for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), said that the solution was selected because it enables integration with international partners and will reduce the training burden for the soldier.

The system was selected under the DSA's Equipment Delivery Drop (EDD) 1, Dalby said. He added that the approach to delivering the overarching DSA solution will be through an incremental delivery strategy via EDDs. Ten EDDs over the next five years are planned, with two delivery drops expected per year.

TAK, often referred to as the Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK), was developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) as a geospatial and military situational awareness mapping engine or app that delivers a common operational picture of the battlefield. Users can navigate using Global Positioning System (GPS), with geospatial map data overlaid to provide real-time situational awareness. It has a plug-in architecture that enables developers to add functionality.

Dalby confirmed to Janes that the British Army will utilise the military version of ATAK.

This BMA solution is “the foundation of what's known in the UK forces as the soldier electronic architecture… [and] complies with developing [the] generic soldier architecture”. It will eventually provide the front-line soldier with answers to the questions: Where am I? Where's my unit? Where is the enemy? And what are my goals?, Dalby said.

The Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) has been selected as the preferred battle management application (BMA...

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