The Team Awareness Kit (TAK) provides Fire, Emergency Management, and First Responders an operationally agnostic tool for improved situational awareness and a common operational picture.
TAK.NZ provides multiple repos to deploy TAK infrastructure on AWS. These repos are based on the work of the Colorado Centre of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting, the driving force behind COTAK - Colorado’s free real-time location service for emergency responders.
The TAK infrastructure is provided through multiple layers, each in a distinct GitHib repo. Layers can be deployed in multiple independent environments. As an example:
PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT DEMO/TESTING ENVIRONMENT DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT
Domain: tak.nz Domain: demo.tak.nz Domain: dev.tak.nz
Deployed via CI/CD Deployed via CI/CD Deployed manually
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ MediaInfra │ │ MediaInfra │ │ MediaInfra │
│ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │
└─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ CloudTAK │ │ CloudTAK │ │ CloudTAK │
│ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │
└─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ TakInfra │ │ TakInfra │ │ TakInfra │
│ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │
└─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ AuthInfra │ │ AuthInfra │ │ AuthInfra │
│ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │
└─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ BaseInfra │ │ BaseInfra │ │ BaseInfra │
│ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │ │ CloudFormation Stack │
└─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────┘
| Layer | Description | Availability | CI/CD pipeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| BaseInfra | Foundation: VPC, ECS, S3, KMS, ACM | ✅ Available as CDK project |   |
| AuthInfra | SSO via Authentik, LDAP | ✅ Available as CDK project |   |
| TAKInfra | TAK Server | ✅ Available as CDK project |   |
| CloudTAK | CloudTAK web interface, ETL | ✅ Available as CDK project |   |
| MediaInfra | Media Streaming | ✅ Available as CDK project |   |
Deployment Order: BaseInfra must be deployed first, followed by AuthInfra, TakInfra, CloudTAK, and finally MediaInfra. Each layer imports outputs from layers below via CloudFormation exports.
Each stacks is provided in a Prod type with full resiliency built-in and a Dev-Test type with reduced resiliency for optimized cost.
TAK.NZ uses CloudTAK's ETL capabilities to extract, transform and load 3rd party data into the TAK ecosystem. The following ETL are currently in use:
| ETL | Description | Data Source | Availability | CI/CD pipeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETL-ADSBX | Aircraft location data via Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) | ADSBExchange.com | ✅ |  |
| ETL-AISHub | Vessel locations based on automatic identification system (AIS) data | aisstream.io | ✅ |  |
| ETL-Avalanche | NZ Avalanche Advisory (NZAA) risk data | New Zealand Avalanche Centre | ✅ |  |
| ETL-CAPNZ | Alerts via Common Alerting Protocol (CAP-NZ) | MetService Weather Warnings, Civil Defense Emergency Mobile Alert | ✅ |  |
| ETL-FIRMS | Satellite based fire detection | NASA FIRMS | ✅ |  |
| ETL-GeoNet-Quakes | Earthquake epicenter locations | GeoNet New Zealand | ✅ |  |
| ETL-GeoNet-VolcanoCams | Volcano cameras | GeoNet New Zealand | ✅ |  |
| ETL-GeoJSON | Any GeoJSON data from an HTTP(S) endpoint | NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, GeoNet New Zealand | ✅ |  |
| ETL-InReach | Garmin InReach satellite messenger tracking | Garmin InReach | ✅ |  |
| ETL-WLG-Metlink | Wellington Metlink vehicle locations | Metlink Open Data | ✅ |  |
| ETL-Utils | Various utility functions to support other ETLs | Rain Viewer, aisstream.io | ✅ |   |
TAK.NZ provides custom iconsets based on New Zealand standards:
| Iconset | Description | Standard | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| GEMA NZEM Symbology Set | Emergency management symbols for TAK | GEMA New Zealand Emergency Management | ✅ |
| Public Safety Vessels Symbology Set | Custom TAK iconset for public safety vessels used in New Zealand emergency management operations | ✅ |
Deploy the TAK.NZ stack (Team Awareness Kit) on AWS in ~1 hour with our One-line installer.
TAK.NZ CloudTAK web based TAK client interface. Various real-time data imported with CloudTAK Extract/Transform/Load (ETL) functions are displayed.
TAK.NZ is distributed under AGPL-3.0-only
Copyright (C) 2025 - Christian Elsen, Team Awareness Kit New Zealand (TAK.NZ)