TAK Glossary: The Most Important Terms from ATAK to Federation

If you are new to ATAK and TAK Server, you quickly hit a wall of abbreviations: CoT, EUD, PLI, Federation, Data Sync. This glossary explains the most important terms from the TAK world in a few sentences each, in alphabetical order and with links to our in-depth articles.

Jump to a letter: 0–9 · A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · K · L · M · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W

0–9

9-Line

A standardized nine-line format for requesting a medical evacuation (MEDEVAC). It covers, among other things, the location, callsign and frequency, the number of patients and their urgency, the equipment needed and the situation at the pickup site. ATAK implements the 9-Line as a form in the CASEVAC tool and shares it as a marker on the map.

A

ADS-B

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast: aircraft broadcast their position, altitude and identification by radio. ATAK can show ADS-B tracks on the map once a data source such as an ADS-B receiver is connected. During drone operations this helps you keep an eye on manned air traffic nearby.

Affiliation

The side an object on the map belongs to: friendly, hostile, neutral or unknown. It sets the shape and color of the symbol according to MIL-STD-2525: blue, red, green or yellow. Civilian users mostly work with just “friendly” and “unknown”.

Alert

The emergency tool in ATAK. Options include 911 Alert, Ring the Bell, Geo Fence Breached and In Contact. You trigger the alert with two switches. All connected participants see it with its position on the map until it is cancelled.

ATAK

Android Team Awareness Kit, the Android app of the TAK ecosystem. It shows a shared map with positions, markers, routes and chats and can be extended with plugins. The US Air Force Research Laboratory began developing ATAK in 2010, originally as the Android Tactical Assault Kit. New versions come out about three times a year, and in October 2026 the current release is 5.8. Our introduction to ATAK covers it in more detail.

ATAK-CIV

The civilian version of ATAK. It is free on Google Play and on tak.gov and is used by fire services, emergency medical services, public agencies and aid organizations. Its source code is on GitHub under the GPLv3 open source license.

ATAK-MIL and ATAK-GOV

ATAK-GOV is meant for government agencies and leaves out military-sensitive features. ATAK-MIL is reserved for armed forces and, outside the US, is only available through the US government’s Foreign Military Sales program. Neither variant is freely available.

B

Bloodhound

An ATAK tool that continuously shows the distance, bearing and estimated time of arrival between two points, for example between your own position and a rendezvous point or another team member. Useful when guiding units to a location.

Blue Force Tracking

BFT for short: the continuous display of friendly unit positions on a map. The term comes from the military, where friendly forces are shown in blue. In ATAK, blue force tracking is built from the PLI reports of all devices.

Breadcrumbs

The recorded track of a participant. ATAK keeps your own and other participants’ tracks for the last 30 days. The Track History tool lets you search them and export them as KML, KMZ, GPX or CSV. Breadcrumbs help with debriefing or when searching for missing persons.

C

Callsign

The name under which a device appears on the network, for example “Engine 44” or “Recon 2”. Unique callsigns that match the radio callsigns are one of the simplest ways to keep the operational picture readable.

CASEVAC

Casualty evacuation, the transport of injured people. In ATAK, this is also the name of the tool used to create a 9-Line request and share it with other participants as a marker.

Certificate

TAK uses X.509 certificates so that server and clients authenticate each other (mutual TLS). Every device should have its own client certificate so it can be revoked individually if the device is lost. Client and server certificates created with the standard TAK Server scripts are valid for two years.

CivTAK

A common name for ATAK-CIV and for the community of civilian TAK users, for example on the community site civtak.org. A US conference on TAK in public safety also goes by that name. We wrote a report on CIVTAK 2024.

Clear Content

An ATAK tool that deletes all ATAK content from the device, optionally including maps and imagery. According to the manual, the files are corrupted in the process so that recovery is nearly impossible. Two switches must be flipped before deletion starts.

Common Operating Picture (COP)

The shared view of units, hazards, actions and resources. ATAK is a tool for building and sharing a digital COP. It does not replace command and control. Our page What is ATAK? shows what that looks like in practice.

Contacts

The contact list in ATAK. It shows all participants on the local network or on the TAK Server and can be sorted by name, connection status, unread messages or distance. A contact’s profile card lists details such as role, ATAK version, last report and battery level.

CoT (Cursor on Target)

The message format all TAK applications use to exchange data. It was created in 2002 at the research organization MITRE for the US Air Force, originally as XML. Every CoT message contains a unique identifier (UID), a type, timestamps, an expiry time (stale time) and a position. Our technical article on ATAK and CoT shows what that looks like in detail.

CoT type

The type field of a CoT message, for example a-f-G-U-C. It follows a hierarchy taken from MIL-STD-2525: “a” for an object (atom), “f” for friendly, “G” for ground, then unit and kind. The client uses the type to decide which symbol to draw.

D

Data Package

A ZIP file with a manifest that bundles markers, maps, documents, images or configurations. Data packages can be shared through TAK Server, as a file or directly with other participants. They used to be called mission packages.

Data Sync

A TAK Server feature for shared data collections that stay in sync, also called missions. Participants subscribe to a mission and automatically receive every change, such as new markers, files or notes. Useful for incidents that are managed over hours or days.

Device Profile

A bundle of settings and files that TAK Server pushes to ATAK devices during certificate enrollment or when they connect. Administrators create profiles in the Device Profile Manager and can restrict them to specific groups. New devices get their configuration without anyone entering it by hand.

Drawing tools

ATAK’s drawing tools: circle, ellipse, rectangle, free form and telestrate, a freehand drawing on the map. Shapes can be labeled, used as a geofence and surrounded by a minimum safe distance zone.

DTED

Digital Terrain Elevation Data, a format for elevation data. ATAK supports levels 0 to 3 and uses elevation data for altitude readouts, elevation profiles, the 3D view and line-of-sight analysis. If a device has no elevation data of its own, ATAK streams it from the network by default. For work without a connection, load it onto the device beforehand.

E

Encrypted Mesh

ATAK can encrypt serverless traffic on the local network with a shared AES-256 key. The key is generated on one device and distributed to all others beforehand, for example in a data package. Encrypted and unencrypted devices can then no longer communicate with each other.

Enrollment

Short for certificate enrollment: a device logs in to TAK Server with a username and password and automatically receives a personal client certificate. By default the server uses port 8446 for this. You no longer have to hand out certificate files manually.

EUD

End user device: the smartphone, tablet or laptop running a TAK client. The term comes up often in documentation and configuration dialogs.

ExCheck

A tool for shared checklists. Tasks are synchronized through TAK Server, and everyone involved can see which items are done. It suits procedures such as setting up a staging area.

F

Federation

Linking two or more TAK Servers, usually run by different organizations. Each side keeps its own server and decides which groups exchange data with the other side. Federation gives several organizations a shared picture without putting all users on one server. What you need to secure is covered in our practical guide to TAK Server security.

Federation Hub

A standalone component that is the central broker between many federated TAK Servers. Instead of setting up each connection individually, every server connects to the hub.

FreeTAKServer

FTS for short. An open-source alternative to the official TAK Server, written in Python.

G

GeoChat

The chat in ATAK. Messages go to individual participants, to groups or to everyone. Without a server, GeoChat uses the multicast address 224.10.10.1 on port 17012 on the local network.

Geofence

A virtual fence around an area on the map. ATAK raises an alert when a participant enters or leaves the area, for example a restricted zone or a hazard area.

GeoPackage

An open file format from the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) that stores geodata in a single SQLite file. ATAK uses GeoPackage files with map tiles as offline maps.

GeoTIFF

A raster image format with embedded georeferencing, typical for aerial imagery and scanned maps. ATAK can display GeoTIFF files directly as a map layer.

GPX

GPS Exchange Format, a widely used XML format for waypoints, routes and tracks. ATAK imports GPX files as an overlay and exports its own tracks or selected items as GPX.

Group

TAK Server assigns every connection to one or more groups. You only see another participant’s data if you share at least one group with them. This lets you keep units or organizations apart on a single server.

H

HAE and MSL

Two reference surfaces for altitude. HAE (height above ellipsoid) measures height above the WGS 84 ellipsoid, MSL (mean sea level) height above mean sea level. CoT always transmits altitude as HAE, while ATAK displays MSL by default. Depending on location, the two values can differ by several dozen meters.

I

Iconset

A collection of custom symbols that is imported into ATAK as a ZIP file. With an iconset you can, for example, use the German civil protection symbols (Taktische Zeichen) instead of the military MIL-STD-2525 symbols.

iTAK

The TAK client for iPhone and iPad, available on the Apple App Store. iTAK connects to the same TAK Servers as ATAK but has fewer features.

K

Keystore

A file holding your own certificate and its private key, usually in PKCS#12 format (.p12) or as a Java KeyStore (.jks). Servers and clients use it to identify themselves to the other side. Its counterpart is the truststore with the certificates a device trusts.

KLV

Key-Length-Value, a format for metadata carried inside a video stream, such as the position and viewing direction of a drone camera. From it, ATAK shows where the sensor is and the point the camera is looking at (SPI). According to the manual, this works with live streams in UDP format.

KML and KMZ

Keyhole Markup Language, the format for points, lines and polygons known from Google Earth. KMZ is the zipped version. ATAK imports both and can show or hide them as a separate layer.

L

Lasso

A selection tool in ATAK: draw a loop around an area and you get a list of all items inside it. You can delete, send or export the selection, for example as a data package, KML, KMZ, GPX or shapefile.

LoRa

Long Range, a radio modulation that reaches far at a very low data rate. In Europe it uses the 868 MHz band. That is enough for positions and short messages, but not for images or video. More in our comparison of mesh radios for ATAK.

M

MANET

Mobile ad hoc network, a radio network that organizes itself between mobile devices and relays data across several nodes. Broadband MANET radios also carry video; LoRa mesh is a narrowband version of the same principle.

Map source

An XML file that tells ATAK where to fetch map tiles from an online service, such as a WMTS or XYZ service. You can download areas from a map source for offline use.

Marker

An object on the ATAK map, for example a point, a symbol or a geotagged photo. Markers are shared with other participants as CoT messages and can carry remarks and attachments.

MBTiles

A file format that stores map tiles in a single SQLite database. MBTiles work well for offline maps because one file holds an entire operating area at several zoom levels.

MediaMTX

An open source media server that receives video streams and passes them on, including over RTSP, RTMP, SRT, HLS and WebRTC. In TAK setups it collects drone and camera feeds for ATAK and browsers. Our article on video streaming with MediaMTX shows how.

Mesh network

A radio network in which devices relay data for each other, so messages also reach participants beyond direct radio range. For ATAK there are narrowband LoRa devices such as Meshtastic and broadband MANET radios. Our comparison of mesh radios shows which devices are permitted in Europe.

Meshtastic

Open-source firmware for low-cost LoRa devices that form a mesh network with each other. With an ATAK plugin you can exchange positions and chat messages without a cellular network.

MGRS

Military Grid Reference System, a grid-based coordinate system built on UTM. An MGRS coordinate such as “32U LB 12345 67890” identifies a point to within one meter. ATAK shows MGRS by default; you can switch to latitude/longitude or UTM.

MIL-STD-2525

The US military standard for tactical symbols. ATAK uses it to display units and objects. German civil protection uses its own symbols instead (see Taktische Zeichen).

Mission

In TAK, a data collection on the server that is shared through Data Sync. Not to be confused with a mission package, the older name for a data package.

Multicast

Without a server, ATAK devices send their position to the local network via UDP multicast to the address 239.2.3.1, port 6969. Every device on the same network receives it. This works on Wi-Fi or in mesh networks, but not over cellular.

O

Offline map

Map data stored on the device in advance that works without a network. ATAK downloads areas from an online map source, up to 850,000 tiles per download according to the manual, or imports ready-made files such as MBTiles, GeoPackage or GeoTIFF. Our ATAK tutorial for beginners shows how to import maps.

OpenTAKServer

OTS for short. An open-source TAK Server implementation in Python with a web interface.

Overlay Manager

The central list of all items and layers on the ATAK map, sorted into categories such as teams, markers, shapes, data packages or imported files. The eye icon shows or hides whole categories or single items.

P

PLI

Position Location Information, the regular position report of a participant. Every ATAK device sends its PLI as a CoT message, at short intervals by default. Together, the PLIs show where everyone is.

Plugin

An extension for ATAK that is installed as a separate app. A plugin has to match the ATAK version and the signature of the installed ATAK variant, and ATAK only loads incompatible plugins after an update. Typical plugins connect radios, drones or sensors. We build such integrations for manufacturers, see plugin development.

Point Dropper

The tool for placing markers. It contains several iconsets, the most recently placed points and the iconset manager. The basic markers come in the affiliations unknown, neutral, hostile and friendly.

Ports (TAK Server)

In the default configuration, TAK Server uses port 8089 for the clients’ TLS connection, 8443 for the admin interface, API and WebTAK with a client certificate, and 8446 for enrollment and password login. Federation runs on 9000 and 9001. Our practical guide to TAK Server security explains which ports to open.

Q

QR enrollment

Setting up a device with a QR code: ATAK reads the server address and credentials and then obtains a client certificate through enrollment. This makes connecting many devices before an operation much faster.

Quick Connect

A variant of enrollment in which the enrollment port of TAK Server uses a certificate from a public certificate authority such as Let’s Encrypt. Clients already trust that certificate, so no truststore file has to be distributed beforehand.

Quick Pic

An ATAK tool for geotagged photos. It opens the camera and places the picture as a marker at your own position. You can rename the photo and send it to other participants.

R

Range & Bearing

An ATAK tool that measures distance and direction between two points. If you like, the line stays on the map and updates when one of the points moves.

Role

Every ATAK user has a role: Team Member, Team Lead, HQ, Sniper, Medic, Forward Observer, RTO or K9. The role appears as an abbreviation in the position symbol and helps you spot leaders on the map.

Route

A sequence of waypoints that you can plan, share and follow in ATAK. While navigating, ATAK shows the direction and distance to the next waypoint.

RTSP, RTMP and SRT

Common protocols for live video. Many IP cameras use RTSP, while many encoders and streaming servers use RTMP and SRT. ATAK’s Video Player plays all three.

Rubber Sheet

A tool for laying an image, such as a site plan or a photo of a paper map, over the map and aligning it at control points. Handy for building plans that only exist as image files.

S

SA

Situational awareness: knowing what is happening around you and where your own units are. In TAK, SA often also refers to the position reports themselves.

SDK

Software development kit. The plugin SDK for ATAK-CIV contains the libraries and tools developers use to build their own plugins. It is available together with example plugins in the ATAK-CIV GitHub repository.

Self Marker

Your own position on the ATAK map, by default a blue arrow with a white outline. Other participants appear as circles in their team color with an abbreviation for their role. A diagonal line through the circle means the device currently has no GPS fix.

Server connection

The entry in ATAK that connects a device to a TAK Server: address, port (8089 with TLS by default) and the client certificate or the credentials for enrollment. Instead of typing everything in, you can set up the connection with a QR code or a data package.

SPI

Sensor point of interest: the point a sensor is currently looking at, such as the center of a drone camera image. ATAK shows SPIs as separate markers and calculates them from sources such as a video’s KLV metadata.

Stale time

The expiry time of a CoT message. After it, the information counts as outdated, and ATAK marks the object accordingly or hides it. Well-chosen stale times keep old positions from looking current.

T

TAK

Team Awareness Kit, the umbrella term for the family of applications and servers around ATAK. It includes ATAK, iTAK, WinTAK, WebTAK, TAK Server and many plugins.

TAK Product Center

The US government office that develops and maintains TAK products and distributes them through tak.gov. TPC for short.

TAK Protocol

A binary transport format for CoT messages based on Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf). Version 1 carries the same content as the XML format, only more compactly. All clients still have to understand the original XML, which counts as version 0.

TAK Server

The central server software that connects TAK clients across network boundaries. It routes messages by group, manages users and certificates, stores data packages and missions, and provides federation.

TAK Tracker

A lightweight Android app that only sends its own position to a TAK Server and also handles chat and emergency messages. It puts responders on the map who do not run a full ATAK installation.

TAK.gov

The official portal of the TAK Product Center. After registering, you can download clients, TAK Server, plugins and documentation there.

Taktische Zeichen (German tactical symbols)

The standardized symbols of German civil protection for units, facilities, damage and measures, known as FwDV 102 or DV 102. ATAK does not ship with them, but they can be added as an iconset.

TAKX

A Windows application in the TAK family that combines WinTAK with the command and control program RaptorX. It is aimed at command posts and offers maps, terrain and imagery analysis and friendly force positions, among other things. Like ATAK, TAKX comes in CIV, GOV and MIL variants.

Team (team color)

In ATAK every participant belongs to a team identified by a color. There are 14 colors to choose from, from White through Cyan to Brown, with Cyan as the default. Team color and role determine how a participant’s position looks on the map.

TLS

Transport Layer Security, the encryption protocol for the connection between TAK clients and TAK Server. TAK Server also checks the client’s certificate (mutual TLS). Unencrypted inputs such as port 8087 should stay switched off.

Truststore

A file with the certificates of the certificate authorities a device trusts. TAK Server creates a truststore during setup, and clients need it to recognize the server as genuine. Only your own or a private certificate authority belongs in the truststore. Its counterpart is the keystore.

U

UAS tool

A tool or plugin for bringing unmanned aircraft into ATAK: the drone’s position, field of view and video appear directly on the map. Our article on video streaming with MediaMTX shows how drone video gets into the TAK ecosystem.

UID

The unique identifier of every object in CoT. When a marker changes, a new message with the same UID is sent and replaces the old one on the map.

Update Server

A repository from which ATAK installs and updates plugins and apps. You enter its address in TAK Package Management or take it from an existing TAK Server connection. With Link EUD, a device receives the plugins that match its role in the organization during initial setup.

V

Video Player

ATAK’s built-in video player. It plays streams from IP cameras, drones and encoders, including UDP, RTSP, RTMP, RTMPS, RTP, HTTP(S) and SRT. You can record videos, save snapshots and share streams with other participants.

Viewshed

A visibility analysis in ATAK’s Elevation Tools. The app calculates which areas can be seen from a point and colors them green (visible) or red (hidden). It needs elevation data. The same tools also generate contour lines and maps of elevation and slope.

W

WearTAK

A subset of ATAK for Wear OS smartwatches. WearTAK shows the map and chat, places markers and can raise alerts based on physiological and sensor data. Data travels as standard CoT messages, so no server plugin is needed.

WebTAK

A TAK client in the browser, served by TAK Server itself. WebTAK suits command posts and staff who want to see the operational picture without installing anything.

WinTAK

The TAK client for Windows. The civilian version, WinTAK-CIV, is available on tak.gov. It is used mainly at command posts with large screens.

WMS and WMTS

Web Map Service and Web Map Tile Service, two OGC standards that agencies and providers use to publish maps online. ATAK connects to such services through a map source. Many national mapping agencies offer their maps as WMS or WMTS.

Frequently asked questions about TAK terms

Further reading

This glossary grows with our articles. If a term is missing or you have questions about using ATAK in your organization, get in touch through our contact page. TAK Hub sets up TAK Servers, runs them in Germany and offers training and workshops for users and administrators.

Marcel Neuroth Founder and Managing Director, TAK Hub

Marcel Neuroth is the founder and managing director of TAK Hub. He served as a soldier in Afghanistan and then studied mechatronics. In Ukraine he volunteered and later coordinated operations as a mission leader, including evacuations near the front line. He used ATAK himself on these missions. Today he and his team set up TAK systems for emergency services, train their personnel and support projects in Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

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