Overview#
Ask a single authenticated question such as "show me every STANAG 4676 track inside this bounding box between 14:00 and 16:00 UTC" and receive a clean feature collection back, with no GeoServer connection to wire up yourself.
Intelligence analysts and operations centre teams spend a surprising amount of time stitching together spatial back ends, time filters, and coordinate plumbing before they can answer a simple question about who or what was where, and when. The GeoWave Spatio-Temporal Analytics capability removes that friction. It fronts a LocationTech GeoWave and GeoServer back end with a structured, organisation-scoped interface, so a developer issues one call constrained by a geographic bounding box and an ISO 8601 time window and the platform handles the standards-compliant feature retrieval underneath.
Named geofences with automatic enter and exit alerting then turn one-off questions into continuous awareness. Analysts define a polygon once, flag whether they care about entries, exits, or both, and let the platform watch on their behalf during active operations. Every retrieval is recorded to the audit trail and every retrieved track is published onto the shared operational bus, so spatial findings flow straight into the wider operating picture without manual re-keying.
Key Features#
- Spatio-temporal feature retrieval: A single organisation-scoped call retrieves features constrained by a geographic bounding box and an ISO 8601 time window, so analysts express questions in operational terms rather than back-end plumbing.
- STANAG 4676 track targeting: Requests target NATO track feature types such as stanag4676_tracks, returning structured movement data in a recognised defence and law-enforcement exchange shape.
- Standards-compliant retrieval underneath: Each request is translated into an OGC WFS 2.0 GetFeature operation against the LocationTech GeoWave and GeoServer back end, with the spatial and temporal constraints carried as filter expressions.
- GeoJSON FeatureCollection output: Results are returned as RFC 7946 GeoJSON, ready to render in third-party tooling without an intermediate transformation step.
- Named polygon geofences: Teams define named polygon geofences per organisation, each flagged for enter alerting, exit alerting, or both, reducing the manual monitoring burden during active operations.
- Operational track emission: Retrieved feature tracks are published as TRACK operational entities onto the shared interop bus, so spatial findings reach the common operating picture automatically.
- Proximity and spatial join: A spatial join endpoint performs proximity matching across two feature types, supporting questions such as which tracks came within range of which fixed locations.
- Audited, organisation-scoped access: Every retrieval and export is recorded to the audit trail, and all access is confined to the requesting user's own organisation, supporting chain-of-evidence and data-access compliance.
Use Cases#
Defence and multi-domain operations#
Operations centres retrieve STANAG 4676 tracks within a defined area and time window to reconstruct movement, correlate sightings, and maintain situational awareness. Named geofences around sensitive areas raise enter and exit signals automatically, freeing watch teams from continuous manual scanning during high-tempo periods.
Law enforcement and investigations#
Investigators issue precise spatio-temporal questions to establish who or what was present in an area during a window of interest. Because every retrieval is written to an immutable audit record, the resulting evidence carries the access provenance required for downstream proceedings.
Border and infrastructure monitoring#
Teams protecting borders, ports, or critical sites define geofences around protected zones and rely on automatic enter and exit alerting to surface activity, while periodic spatio-temporal retrievals provide a fuller history of movement through the area.
GIS and analytics developers#
Developers building mapping front ends consume the GeoJSON output directly, layering retrieved tracks and geofences into existing geospatial tooling without standing up or managing a GeoServer connection themselves.
Integration#
Customers connect through an organisation-scoped programmatic interface exposing the operations geowaveQuery, geowaveGeofences, and geowaveStats for retrieval and statistics, plus a createGeofence operation for defining named geofences. Every operation requires an authenticated session and is automatically confined to the caller's own organisation, so multi-tenant isolation is enforced without additional client effort.
Retrieved feature tracks are emitted as normalised TRACK operational entities onto the shared interop bus, allowing other modules and connected systems to consume movement data in a consistent operational model rather than a raw spatial payload. Query metadata is persisted to PostgreSQL and each retrieval and export is recorded to the audit trail, giving customers a durable record of what was asked and answered.
The RFC 7946 GeoJSON output is directly consumable by QGIS, CesiumJS, and MapLibre, so existing geospatial front ends and dashboards plug in and render results with no bespoke conversion layer. Authentication uses OAuth2 and JWT-based sessions consistent with the rest of the platform, and the underlying connector speaks OGC WFS to the GeoServer and GeoWave back end, meaning standard geospatial infrastructure interoperates out of the box.
Open Standards#
- STANAG 4676 (NATO track data exchange): Requests target STANAG 4676 track feature types such as stanag4676_tracks, aligning retrieved movement data with the NATO standard for track exchange.
- OGC WFS 2.0 / ISO 19142 (Web Feature Service): Feature retrieval is performed as an OGC Web Feature Service 2.0 GetFeature operation against the GeoServer and GeoWave back end, the open standard for accessing geographic features over the web.
- GeoJSON / IETF RFC 7946 (FeatureCollection output): Results are returned as a GeoJSON FeatureCollection per RFC 7946, the widely supported open format consumed directly by QGIS, CesiumJS, and MapLibre.
- ISO 8601 (time-range filtering): Temporal constraints are expressed as ISO 8601 time ranges, so a customer specifies a window such as 14:00 to 16:00 UTC in a single, unambiguous, internationally recognised format.
Security & Compliance#
Every retrieval and geofence operation requires an authenticated session and is confined to the requesting user's own organisation, preventing cross-tenant data exposure. Each retrieval and export is recorded to an immutable audit trail, and named geofences carry classification handling consistent with the platform's multi-level security model. This audit coverage and strict organisation scoping support the chain-of-evidence and data-access requirements typical of law enforcement and defence deployments.
Last Reviewed: 2026-05-26 Last Updated: 2026-05-26