84 Focus | Ground control stations protruding buttons and other interfaces requiring deliberate, decisive movement to actuate, be it for the uncrewed vehicle or one or more of its payloads. That may sound like an excessive effort compared with a laptop or tablet, but the need for extremely precise mission planning or even timely operator intervention in many uncrewed vehicle applications today (such as search-andrescue, emergency services or defence missions) makes consumer electronicstype devices increasingly unsuitable for high-end users. Flat laptop keyboards can be fat-fingered, touchpads induce too many mistakes, and touchscreens are out in how many errors they can produce from even the most tenacious operator (especially in moving vehicles). As a result, there exists four broad categories of what one might call ‘true’, dedicated GCSs in the hardware product sense. The lightest-duty are handheld tablettype systems, designed with analogue interfaces constantly within reach of the holder’s thumbs, as well as highly SWaP-optimised batteries and radios to maximise system mobility while minimising weight (and operator fatigue). The most heavy-duty are large, containerised or semi-containerised (with equipment arranged in crates, pallets or customised vans), remote command centres. These are typically tightlyintegrated solutions, designed with more than two computers and a higher number of monitors for diverse information analysis. Naturally, they are also the least widespread, given the cost of massproducing and delivering them, as well as their lack of mobility compared with other types, but they remain invaluable for serious users across defence, maritime and energy industries in particular. Between these two extremes are case-type GCSs – highly turnkey solutions, often built into Pelican-style cases and integrating computers more powerful than tablets, as well as a plethora of controls, connectors, displays and features – and GCSs composed modularly of the user’s own choice of computer, monitor, controls, and so on. The last of these four may sound an odd category to include among the more tangible other three, but some manufacturers are deliberately producing hub-type units that efficiently route and organise information traffic between PCs, analogue control peripherals and multiple critical industrial peripherals, such as radios, antennas and GNSS base stations. The creation of such devices is motivated by the growing need for multiple GCS units to connect in a coordinated and simultaneous manner with multiple vehicles (aerial, maritime and terrestrial), and for such GCSs to integrate with crewed vehicles for Manned-Unmanned Teaming missions that require operating both uncrewed and crewed vehicles in formations or swarms. As a result, a well-made GCS hub unit will include multiple physical and I/O ports, covering serial, Ethernet, CAN, GPIO and ADC systems, as well as ruggedisations to IP66, IP67 or similar ratings, as needed for the range of environments rich in dust, saltwater and precipitation. Quality of life Among the other GCS types, a variety of technical improvements have been achieved over the last year towards a number of key operating objectives revealed through the accumulated real-world mission hours of professional uncrewed vehicles. With case-type GCSs, it has been found that COTS industry-standard cases do not make for the most hospitable environments for industrial computers to function in over the long term, particularly from a thermalmanagement perspective. They sometimes lack protection from specific environmental factors, such as dust ingress or water spray. This is driving some GCS suppliers to design their own carry cases. While the extent of manufacturing facilities available in-house for such companies can vary, their custom cases can be designvalidated and made by third parties. This can help to ensure the GCS-specific cases still have IP53 or IP54 protection ratings, as with standard cases, but with new features such as integrated vents for circulating cooling air through the cases while still keeping water from coming in contact with the electronics. Additional quality-of-life improvements being realised through custom GCS case designs include running cabling through the case hinges to prevent exposure of cables to water and assembly panels that have been specifically chosen for improved strength-to-weight over the industry cases. For handheld GCSs, ease of use and convenience are even more strongly October/November 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Customising GCSs for cooling channels, connectors, radio mounts and other user-specific requirements is paramount in today’s industry (Image courtesy of Worthington Sharpe)
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