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Own position & GPS

Put the AryaOS box itself on the map, and share its GPS with your TAK client. This works in every role — the position core always runs — so your sensor gateway is also a self-locating node.

AryaOS uses two cooperating tools for position:

  • LINCOT beacons the host's own position to TAK as a CoT marker, so the box shows up on the map like any other unit.
  • GPSTAK streams gpsd position data to the network as CoT and fans out NMEA for WinTAK — giving a connected phone or laptop a GPS fix even when it has no receiver of its own.

Both feed from gpsd, which reads a connected GNSS receiver.

Always on

charontak, lincot, gpstak, and gpsd are part of the CoT core and run regardless of the selected device role — including relay. You do not need a special role to share position.

Hardware

Part Notes
USB or UART GNSS receiver Any gpsd-supported GPS/GNSS puck. Give it a clear view of the sky.
(Optional) none If you have no receiver, use a static fallback position (below).

How position flows

flowchart LR
    G[GNSS receiver] --> D[gpsd]
    D --> L[LINCOT<br/>host beacon]
    D --> T[GPSTAK<br/>network GPS + NMEA]
    L -->|CoT| H[Charontak hub]
    T -->|CoT / NMEA| E[ATAK / WinTAK]
    H -->|Mesh SA 239.2.3.1:6969| E
  • LINCOT → Charontak → Mesh SA: the box appears as a self-marker on every connected EUD.
  • GPSTAK → EUD: a phone or WinTAK laptop on the AryaOS network uses the box's GPS as its own position source.

Share the box's position with TAK

No configuration is required in the common case: connect a GNSS receiver, connect your EUD to the AryaOS hotspot, and the box's marker appears via Mesh SA.

To confirm the pipeline:

systemctl status gpsd lincot gpstak
gpspipe -w -n 5        # raw gpsd JSON — check for TPV with lat/lon

Identity on the map

The box's marker uses COT_HOST_ID (set on first boot to aryaos-<suffix>) as its source identity. Override COT_HOST_ID in the site config to give a unit a mission-specific callsign.

Give your EUD a network GPS fix

When your phone or WinTAK machine has no GPS (or a poor one indoors/in a vehicle), point it at GPSTAK:

GPSTAK fans out NMEA that WinTAK can consume as an external GPS source, so a laptop with no receiver gets a live fix from the box.

ATAK can take its position from the network via CoT/GPSTAK when running on a device without its own reliable fix.

See the GPSTAK project for client-side setup details. GPS integrity (spoof/jam) can be monitored from the cockpit-gps plugin.

Static position fallback

If the box has no GNSS receiver — or you want a fixed marker for a base station or repeater — set a static position instead of relying on gpsd. LINCOT supports a fixed lat/lon so the host still beacons a location. Configure it from the LINCOT plugin in Cockpit (which edits /etc/default/lincot).

Wildland fire & SAR

In fire and search-and-rescue deployments, a self-locating gateway lets the incident COP show exactly where each sensor node sits, even when the carrying EUD is offline.