CHAPTER 1

System Overview & Architecture

Welcome to the TacTrax User Manual. TacTrax is an aviation-grade tactical mapping, geospatial data aggregation, and asset-tracking platform engineered specifically for helicopter operations, aerial culling, wildlife surveying, search & rescue, and intensive land management.

At the core of TacTrax is a critical design constraint: Disconnected Resilience. Pilots operating in remote mountainous areas, maritime boundaries, or outback zones cannot rely on active cellular connections. Therefore, TacTrax is built from the ground up as an offline-first mobile application, backed by a high-throughput geospatial data pipeline.

constructionPlatform Pillars

  • Multi-Layer Geospatial Stack: Combines 37 distinct vector and raster map layers including cadastral boundaries, hazard lines, power grids, and maritime park zonings.
  • Aviation-Grade Telemetry: Employs EMA (Exponential Moving Average) smoothing and CTRV (Constant Turn Rate and Velocity) prediction models for high-vibration, high-speed tracking.
  • Dynamic Mode Ingestion: Tailors UI displays instantly based on 7 operational modes, disabling unneeded layers to keep pilot workloads light and screens decluttered.
  • Data Durability Stack: Protects recorded flight paths, parcel plans, and annotations with atomic uploads, soft deletions (trash recovery), and automatic cloud synchronization.

Platform Ecosystem

The TacTrax platform comprises three primary interconnected components:

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1. Mobile Application

Built in React Native (Expo) and MapLibre GL. Runs on tablets mounted in the cockpit. Renders vector tiles, tracks live GPS, triggers geofence warnings, and works 100% offline.

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2. Data Pipeline Server

A Python-based server that automatically discovers and normalizes cadastral, power grid, and environmental datasets, compiling them into compressed PMTiles served via a Martin server on geo.local.

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3. Web Portal

This Next.js portal. Allows dispatchers and operators to draw flight plans, edit boundaries, tag parcels, manage offline maps configuration, and inspect flight paths on a large screen.