Personnel and vehicle tracks
Over mesh, with per-entity update age shown.
Defense · Situational awareness · Whitepaper
One map. Every entity.
A common operating picture is only common if it survives the conditions the force is operating in. NavTrax fuses personnel, vehicles, aircraft, sensors and supply into one entity layer that updates over mesh and remains authoritative with no link at all.
01 / Problem statement
What we are designing against.
Most operating pictures are common at the command post and stale everywhere else.
The picture is centralized. Entities are reconciled on a server. When the edge loses the link, the edge loses the picture — which is precisely when it is needed.
Entities are not objects. Without a data model that treats a person, a vehicle, a drone, a route and a supply cache as linked objects, fusion is a map with pins on it and no relationships to reason over.
Concurrent updates destroy each other. Two elements reporting the same entity from different positions, resolved by last-write-wins, produces a picture that flickers between two truths.
02 / Mechanism
The design, stated so it can be evaluated.
- Entity model
- Person, vehicle, aircraft, sensor, route, supply cache and threat are first-class linked objects, not annotations. Relationships are queryable — which is what turns a map into a picture.
- Edge-authoritative
- Every node holds the picture. Reconciliation is peer-to-peer over mesh, and a node with no link continues to hold a coherent, self-consistent view.
- Field-level convergence
- Concurrent reports merge by field with a deterministic tiebreak, so two elements observing the same entity converge instead of alternating.
- Multi-sensor fusion
- Drone video and telemetry, mesh position beacons, GNSS, thermal feeds and wearable vitals are fused into one track layer with the source and age of each contribution recorded.
- Age is displayed
- Every entity shows the age of its last update. A ten-minute-old position drawn identically to a live one is how a picture becomes dangerous.
- Offline refresh
- The picture updates from mesh traffic alone. No server round-trip is required for the edge to stay current with its own neighbors.
03 / Capabilities
What is actually delivered.
Aircraft and sensor feeds
Drone telemetry and video relayed through whichever node has capacity.
Supply and sustainment state
Caches and consumables as depletable objects on the same picture.
Vitals in the picture
Where the member has consented to share them.
Deterministic convergence
Concurrent observations merge, they do not overwrite.
Works with no server
The edge is authoritative for what it can reach.
Exportable record
The whole picture history, timestamped, for review.
04 / Reference
| Entity | Sources | Update path | Age shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Person | GNSS, mesh beacon, wearable | Mesh, cellular | Yes |
| Vehicle | GNSS, OBD-II | Mesh, cellular | Yes |
| Aircraft | Airframe telemetry | Relay through any node | Yes |
| Sensor | Thermal, acoustic, seismic | Mesh | Yes |
| Route | Planned and actual track | Sync fabric | Yes |
| Supply cache | Manual and inventory state | Sync fabric | Yes |
| Threat | Observation and classification | Mesh, human-confirmed | Yes |
05 / Process
Traced, node by node.
Common means common at the edge.
The operating picture, entity model and fusion are Enterprise.