PER-002: Jason Trask — Field Awareness Officer

Andi Lamprecht ·2026-05-11· 17 min read· Draft

Draft UERQ-PLANS-62 Field / Mobile Application

“I don’t need to know who’s flying or why they were approved. I need to know: is that thing in the system, is it where it’s supposed to be, and if not, who do I call?”

1. Identity

2. Professional Context

Responsibilities

• Maintains real-time situational awareness of drone activity within his assigned patrol area or event security perimeter using a mobile COP fed by Traffic Service track data.
• Identifies and classifies drone activity observed in the field: correlates visual sightings with tracks in the system to determine whether an observed aircraft is known (tracked) or unknown (not in the system).
• Reports visual sightings of unidentified drones that do not correspond to any existing track, contributing field observation data back into the Traffic Service for correlation and alerting.
• Receives and responds to pushed non-conformance alerts and operational event notifications (geofence breaches, altitude deviations, communication link losses) for aircraft operating within his area of interest.
• Escalates anomalous or threatening activity to the Airspace Operations Manager (Jessica Cooper, PER-004) at the TOC, who has authorization-level visibility and decision authority, or to the on-scene incident commander for law enforcement response.

Team & Reporting

• Reports to the Aviation & Critical Infrastructure Unit Sergeant. Works in 2-person field teams during routine patrols; scales to 4–8 agents during major events.
• Coordinates operationally with the state TOC (Jessica Cooper’s team, PER-004) via radio and TAK.
• Coordinates with on-scene patrol officers who may report drone sightings but lack ATOMx access.
• During joint operations (e.g., dignitary visit, stadium event), may work alongside Secret Service, TSA, or National Guard C-UAS teams who operate their own detection systems — Jason provides the ATOMx traffic picture as a complementary layer.

Operational Environment

• Primary: Mobile field operations — on foot, in a patrol vehicle, or at a fixed observation post within an event security perimeter. Uses a ruggedized tablet (Samsung Galaxy Tab Active or equivalent) as the primary display device. Must operate the interface one-handed or hands-free while maintaining visual contact with the sky, managing radio communications, and coordinating with patrol officers.
• Secondary: Field office or mobile command post (MCP) for pre-shift briefings, area-of-interest configuration, and post-shift reporting.
• Connectivity: Highly variable. Urban environments: generally reliable LTE/5G but with dead zones in parking garages, tunnels, and dense high-rise canyons. Event environments: cellular congestion during large public gatherings may degrade or eliminate data connectivity (may have FirstNet). Austere environments: rural critical infrastructure sites (dams, power substations) may have minimal cellular coverage.
• Weather exposure: Operates outdoors in all conditions. Screen must be readable in direct sunlight. Alerts must be audible over crowd noise, traffic, helicopter rotor wash, and radio chatter.

Technical Proficiency

• Proficient with CivTAK and similar map-based tactical awareness tools from prior military or law enforcement experience. Comfortable with ruggedized mobile devices, radio communications, and GPS-based navigation.
• Expects a map-centric interface with track symbology consistent with TAK conventions — blue for friendly/known, red for hostile/non-conforming, yellow for unknown/unverified.
• Not a software developer; cannot configure APIs, write queries, or troubleshoot data feed issues. Expects the system to surface actionable information without requiring data manipulation.
• Does not have aviation-specific training: unfamiliar with airspace classification, NOTAM formatting, or Part 107 operational rules. Needs plain-language status indicators, not aviation jargon.

Decision Authority

• Can independently define and adjust his area of interest within the jurisdiction boundary of his organization’s authority. [UERQ-SYS-1837]
• Can filter event subscriptions by type, severity, altitude band, and time window. [UERQ-SYS-1843]
• Can submit visual sighting reports into the system.
• Cannot approve, deny, modify, or rescind any flight authorization — Incident Monitor role explicitly prohibits this. [UERQ-SYS-1836]
• Cannot view operator personal data unless the tenant privacy configuration permits it (typically Limited or Anonymous for law enforcement field agents). [UERQ-SYS-1845]
• Cannot modify rules, jurisdiction boundaries, or authority configurations.
• Must escalate to the TOC (Jessica Cooper, PER-004) for any action that requires authorization-level decision authority, including requesting a rescind, but has the authority to tell an RPIC they’re shadowing to “knock it off”.
• Must escalate to the Unit Sergeant for any law enforcement response decision (detain, investigate, request FAA enforcement).

Regulatory Context

• Operates under the department’s UAS Response Protocol, which requires documented justification for all escalation actions and incident reports.
• Subject to 4th Amendment constraints: observing a drone in public airspace is lawful, but any enforcement action against the operator requires reasonable suspicion and is governed by departmental use-of-force and investigative policies.
• The department’s ATOMx access is granted through a data-sharing agreement with the state DOT authority tenant; the department’s Incident Monitor permissions are scoped to the municipality’s jurisdiction boundary.
• Jason does not hold an FAA pilot certificate and is not required to.
• Annual recurrency training on the department’s UAS Response Protocol and ATOMx field operations procedures.

3. Goals

Life Goals

• Become the department’s subject matter expert on low-altitude airspace operations and drone incident response.
• Advance to the Unit Sergeant role within the Aviation & Critical Infrastructure Unit.
• Build credibility with state and federal partners (TOC, FAA, Secret Service) as a reliable field-level information source.

Experience Goals

• Feel confident that if he can see a drone, he can determine within seconds whether it is tracked by the system and whether it is behaving normally — without needing to call the TOC.
• Never be the last to know: if a non-conformance event or geofence breach is happening in his area, the alert should reach his tablet before he hears about it on the radio.
• Not feel overwhelmed by information he cannot act on: he does not need rules, jurisdiction configurations, authorization details, or operator PII — he needs track status, position, and behavior.
• Trust that a “no tracks in area” display means no tracks, not “system disconnected and showing stale data.”

End Goals

• Correlate a visually observed drone with a system track within 15 seconds using the mobile COP: tap approximate location on the map, see if a track exists at that position and altitude.
• Receive non-conformance and geofence breach alerts on his tablet within 5 seconds of event detection [UERQ-SYS-1841] with sufficient context to assess severity without switching screens.
• Submit a visual or digital (RID) sighting report for an unidentified drone (position, approximate altitude, heading, description) in under 30 seconds using a streamlined mobile input.
• Escalate an anomalous track or unidentified sighting to the TOC with one tap, attaching the relevant track ID or sighting report.
• Know immediately when his data feed is degraded or disconnected — and clearly distinguish “no activity” from “no data.”

4. Frustrations & Pain Points

Current Pain Points

• No integrated field tool: currently juggles CivTAK for positional awareness, a separate radio for TOC coordination, and a phone for ad-hoc calls to the state aviation office — none of these systems share data.
• When a patrol officer calls in a drone sighting, Jason has no way to quickly check whether the drone is in the system without calling the TOC and waiting for a verbal response.
• Cannot determine in the field whether an observed drone is known, unknown, conforming, or non-conforming — every sighting requires a phone call to the TOC for correlation.
• No mechanism to submit field observations (visual sightings) into the system for correlation with existing tracks or for creating new track-initiation data.
• Post-shift reporting requires re-entering field observations, radio logs, and incident details into a separate reporting system — “reporting debt” that often takes 1–2 hours after an 8-hour field shift.
• Cellular congestion during large events renders the tablet useless at the moments when airspace awareness is most critical.

Workarounds

• Uses CivTAK peer-to-peer mesh networking to share position data with other field agents when cellular connectivity fails, but this does not include ATOMx track data.
• Takes photos of drones on his phone and texts them to the TOC analyst for manual correlation — a process that takes 3–5 minutes per sighting.
• Maintains a handwritten field log of drone sightings with timestamps, approximate positions, and descriptions because there is no digital reporting mechanism on the tablet.
• Pre-downloads satellite imagery of the event venue to CivTAK so he has a map even if connectivity drops — but without track data, the map is just terrain.

Unmet Needs

• A mobile COP that displays Traffic Service track data on a map interface consistent with TAK conventions, optimized for one-handed tablet operation in field conditions. [UERQ-SYS-1730, UERQ-SYS-1662]
• Track correlation capability: tap a location on the map and see whether any track exists within a configurable proximity radius, with track status (known/unknown, conforming/non-conforming, trust score). [UERQ-SYS-1816]
• Visual sighting submission: a streamlined mobile form to report an observed drone that is not correlated with any system track — position (GPS from device or map tap), approximate altitude, heading, visual description, optional photo.
• Offline resilience: the ability to cache the last known COP state, get predicted position when there are gaps, continue receiving peer-to-peer position shares, and queue sighting reports for upload when connectivity restores.
• Clear, unmissable system health indication: a persistent status bar showing data feed health, staleness, and connectivity state — so “empty map” is never ambiguous. [UERQ-SYS-1664, UERQ-SYS-1813(e)]

5. Safety & Operational Context

Safety-Critical Decisions

• Classifying a visual sighting as “known/tracked” vs. “unknown.” If Jason incorrectly correlates a visual sighting with the wrong track (or fails to identify a non-correlated drone as unknown), the threat assessment is wrong. A genuinely unidentified drone near a protected venue may not be escalated. [UERQ-SYS-1816, UERQ-SYS-1813]
• Escalating to the TOC. Jason’s escalation triggers downstream action by Jessica Cooper (PER-004), who may issue a rescind notification, coordinate with airport authorities, or alert law enforcement aviation units. A false escalation wastes TOC resources and may cause an unnecessary rescind of a legitimate flight. A missed escalation leaves an anomalous situation unaddressed.
• Assessing alert severity in the field. When Jason receives a non-conformance alert [UERQ-SYS-1838], he must rapidly assess whether the situation requires immediate law enforcement response or continued monitoring. The alert content [UERQ-SYS-1839] must support this assessment without requiring Jason to access additional screens or systems.
• Reporting an unidentified sighting. Jason’s visual sighting report may initiate a track in the Traffic Service or trigger an alert to the TOC. An inaccurate position or altitude estimate in the report could misdirect response resources.

Time Pressure

Information Needs During Stress

Failure Tolerance

• Cellular connectivity loss: This is not an edge case — it is a routine operating condition, especially during large events. The system must degrade gracefully: cache last known track positions with timestamps, display a prominent “OFFLINE” banner with last-sync time, and queue sighting reports for upload when connectivity restores. Jason must be able to distinguish “no tracks in area” from “no data.” [UERQ-SYS-1664, UERQ-SYS-1813(e)]
• Traffic Service degradation: If the Traffic Service enters degraded mode [UERQ-SYS-1680], Jason’s COP is operating on incomplete data. A COP that shows fewer tracks than actually exist is dangerous — Jason may classify an area as “clear” when it is not. The degradation indication must be unmissable on a mobile screen in sunlight. [UERQ-SYS-1806]
• Tablet failure or battery depletion: Jason falls back to radio communication with the TOC. The system must not depend on Jason’s device being continuously connected — the TOC (Jessica Cooper) must be able to see Jason’s area of interest status independently.
• FAS degradation: If the FAS enters degraded mode [UERQ-SYS-1515], Jason does not directly feel this — he does not interact with the FAS. However, FAS degradation may mean that non-conformance alerts stop flowing. Jason needs indication that his alert feed may be incomplete.

Consequence of Error

Training & Certification

• No FAA pilot certificate required (Jason is not an operator).
• Department requires completion of a 40-hour UAS Field Awareness certification course covering: drone visual identification (types, sizes, flight profiles), CivTAK/ATOMx mobile COP operation, visual altitude estimation techniques, sighting report procedures, escalation protocols, and legal authorities and constraints.
• Annual recurrency training on department UAS Response Protocol and ATOMx field operations updates.
• Quarterly joint exercises with the state TOC (Jessica Cooper’s team) simulating non-cooperative drone incursions during major events.
• Expects the system to use tactical display conventions consistent with CivTAK (track symbology, color coding, map orientation). Does NOT expect aviation-specific terminology.

6. Key Scenarios

Scenarios are documented as individual pages under the Key Scenarios section.

7. System Interaction Profile

Session Pattern

Data Volume

• Receives real-time track updates for all tracks within his area of interest (typically 5–30 active tracks during a major event, 0–5 during routine patrol). Track update rate: 1 Hz per track [UERQ-SYS-1817].
• Receives 0–10 event notifications per shift during routine operations; 10–50 during a high-activity event.
• Submits 0–5 visual sighting reports per shift.
• Does not access historical data in the field; historical review is a post-shift office activity.

Notification Needs

System status (persistent indicator): Data feed health, connectivity status, last sync timestamp. Must be always visible, never buried in a menu. [UERQ-SYS-1664]

Collaboration Needs

• Real-time coordination with the TOC (Jessica Cooper, PER-004) via escalation mechanism and radio. Escalation must be one-tap with automatic context attachment (track ID, sighting report, event details).
• Needs to share his COP view or specific track information with his field partner and with patrol officers who do not have ATOMx access (screen share or verbal description).
• During joint operations: needs ATOMx track data integrated with or overlaid on CivTAK, which is the common operating picture for multi-agency tactical operations. [UERQ-SYS-1662, UERQ-SYS-1730]
• Does NOT interact with operators, authorities, or other organizations through the ATOMx system. All coordination is through the TOC or through law enforcement channels.

8. Traceability

9. Revision History