Design and Assembly of a Ground Control Station for Long

Range and Long Endurance UAVs

Nelson Teixeira Cavaco
[email protected]

Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

November 2022

Abstract
The increasing number of applications for unmanned aerial vehicles demands reliable and robustness
systems that can met the requirements of a wide range of missions. Having fully operational ground
control station that provides reliability, an easy setup, safety, adaptability, easy decision making, among
others, is a key point for the success of any unmanned aerial system mission. Therefore, the design
and assembly of a ground control station for long range and long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles
is presented. The mission requirements are derived from civilian surveillance applications, such as
forest, coast or border patrol. The main steps of the design and assembly are covered as well as the
description of each system and component and how they operate together to comprise a ground station.
The feasibility of a low cost mobile ground control station for missions up to 8h and 100km range is
demonstrated.
Keywords: Mobile station, system architecture, flight control, communication, data recording, fail-safe
systems.
1. Introduction trailer capable of operating an UAV safely at dis-
UASs technologies are important in several appli- tance. Since it is used Mission Planner, the GCS
cations not only in military but also in civilian. has the ability to control other unmanned vehicles
Whether it is wildfire monitoring, Good transporta- beyond UAV’s. For instance RC cars, RC boats or
tion, Sea Patrol or even for farming applications even submarines. Mission planner is an open source
UAS play an important role in the future of civi- software which is prepared for such modularity de-
lization as we know it. pending of the needs of the user. It’s user interface
The importance of having a Control Ground Sta- is very user friendly and uses the MAVLINK com-
tion, a key part of UAS which enables the safety munication protocol which enables the secure con-
operation of UAV long endurance missions is clear. nection between GCS and vehicle preventing hacker
This work comes in the follow up of the work done attacks. It exchanges all the important telemetry
by Afonso Rodrigues in [1], Luı́s Candido [2], Tiago data as well as the batery state, RSSI and even
Ferreira [3], Joana Sousa [4], Alexandre Duarte [5] video. This way analogic video is no longer neces-
and Luı́s Freitas [6] where across several years they sary increasing remote image quality which can be
studied and implemented a solution for a Long En- processed and used to do object detection.
durance Electric UAV. LEEUAV is a prototype of To summarize the GCS implemented in this work
4.5 meters wingspan and ultralight structure with is the culmination of the community and previous
solar panels incorporated that enables the aircraft work best achievements resulting in a reliable, func-
to fly on missions up to 8h. tioning, mobile and effortless Ground Control Sta-
In this paper it is conceived and implemented tion to setup and operate at long distances.
a solution for such GCS capable of operating an
UAV over 100km during at least 8h taking in to 2. Unmanned Aerial Systems
account several key requirements such as human Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) means an un-
interfacing, servicing, durability, redundancy and manned aircraft and the equipment to control it
reliability, compliance, mission planning, setup remotely.
time, platform security, decision making, environ- 2.1. Unmaned Aerial Vehicles
mental conditions and crew training. The vehicle in order to perform unmanned maneu-
vers shall incorporate many sensors, as described in
The result is a GCS in the form of a mobile

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 Figure 1: Unmanned Aerial System [7]

Fig.1, to acquire all the data to read and estimate

the current state of the aircraft. When a control
command is given from the GCS, usually through Figure 2: Key basic requirements
a radio link between the two, the flight controller
compares the command with the current state and
generates a signal that is forwarded to the control connections and its communication protocols with
unit of the actuators . This link can be done directly the intention of making it clear how exactly this
with just two antennas or behind light of sight with GCS will be composed of.
the help of other systems, a satellite for example.
3.1. Main Systems
On the ground, the command is given by the hu-
From a general standpoint, we can divide the GCS
man interface in the GCS that can be a room full
into four main systems as ilustrated in Fig. 3.
of many features or just a mobile remote control
that supports basic operations.
3.1.1 Flight Control
2.2. Ground Control Stations
The Flight Control system is responsible for the
There are already a wide range of different GCSs
controllability of the aircraft in every stage of au-
but all are conceived taking into account some basic
tonomous flight, including take-off, climbing, loi-
requirements.
ter, trajectory following, descent, hold and landing.
While initiating the design of a ground control
Through this system, the operator must be able to
station, it is important to define the “need to have”
control, monitor and send commands to the air-
and “nice to have” requirements. These are cho-
craft. This system is composed of: the computer,
sen taking into account the operations and missions
the screen displays, the Mission Planner software
for which the ground control station will be used
and the radio control.
and the UAV capabilities controlled by the GCS.
In Fig.2, a few aspects([8] and [9]) that shall be
taken into account are presented. 3.1.2 Communication
There are several methods to send and receive data
2.3. Basic Systems
in UAS. The data exchanged between the GCS and
In terms of connectivity between the UAV and the
the UAV can be commands, telemetry data or/and
GCS three interfaces shall be implemented to fulfill
video. In order to have that exchange of infor-
three major tasks, as studied in [10].
mation, radio frequency transceivers and antennas
Therefore the GCS shall be comprised of the fol-
are used along with communication protocol that
lowing main systems and components which will be
makes possible the data transfer and its interpreta-
described better ahead: flight control, recording,
tion. MAVLINK and PPM are just a few.
communications and electrical, Fig.3.
3. System and Components 3.1.3 Data Recording
In this section, the GCS systems and components
will be scrutinized to its lower level explaining how Data mostly enters the GCS through MAVLINK
the systems interact with each other, the electrical and via Human Interface. Either way is goes trough
the computer which has its own memory RAM in

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 Figure 3: GCS systems and subsystems

which data logs can be created. Managing the data safely. A double power converter is chosen to emu-
of different flights and missions represents an im- late an online UPS system.
portant factor to the success of the mission. In ad- The power distribution is divided between es-
dition, the analog video receiver system saves its sential components and non essential compo-
images directly to an SD card. This enables the nents. Having two different working voltages,
easiness of taking out the images from the GCS to the distribution is described in Fig.4, as Non Es-
any other device by simply taking out the SD card sentials@230VAC, Non Essentials@12VDC, Essen-
from the SD card reader. tials@230VAC and Essentials@12VDC. This way it
is specified what should be turned on during normal
3.1.4 Electrical operation in case of power failure.
In addition, the operator can, in any instance (be-
In order to power up the GCS and all of its sys- fore, during or after the mission) be able to dis-
tems, electricity shall be fed into the trailer. Power able manually individually each segment through
failures are likely to occur and shall be mitigated switches A, B and C. They can be turned on and
with redundant components along with a good ca- off whenever is necessary.
ble management to ensure reliability. In Fig.4 the In case of an eventual malfunctioning or shut-
power system architecture that will be implemented down due to any cause, only essential systems are
to ensure redundancy, reliability and control over turned on to maximize the duration of the battery
the different sources. With the implementation of and consequently the operation in course.
switches, it is possible to control and choose in a
manual way what is turned on and what is not. 3.2. System Architecture
From an operation point of view, preferably the The main systems are :
generator is used as main source of power, having
a differential switch satisfying the standards of the ˆ Power system - designed to power all systems
International Electrotechnical Commission in order and had previously explained in Sec.3.1.4 ;
to ensure safety of humans in case of short circuit. ˆ Communications, antennas and video record-
Both generator and grid sources have this protec- ing - is the hardware responsible to broadcast
tion. Then a source selector is added to give the and receive, through electromagnetic waves,
possibility to switch between sources manually and the commands and telemetry between the GCS

3
 Figure 4: Power System Architecture

and the UAV as well as to receive and record In a succinctly manner energy must flow from the
the analog video stream; power generator to the double converter. All that
is essential and crucial to the success of the mission
ˆ Computer - Runs the Mission Planner and acts
is powered by the converter to ensure that there is
like a telemetry recording system;
no energy gap, in case of fuel ends up or any other
ˆ RC Controller and Human Interface - where power failure.
the operator can give inputs to the GCS and The video system requires 12VDC while every-
control either manually or through actions the thing else require 230VAC to work properly. The
UAV. central indicator and control panel, as the name
says will be a set of indicators and control switches
As the operator uses Mission Planner which
to power ON and OFF each one of the systems.
runs on the computer, the commands are intro-
Other connections that are not power connec-
duced through mouse and keyboard. These are
tions are the video stream. Since it enters the GCS
interpreted by the Mission Planner, encoded into
through the antenna of the video receiver, it flows
MAVLINK packets and sent over a serial COM port
to the DVR recorded and then is displayed on one
- just a USB cable connected to a USB port - which
of the LCDS. This is the analogical video system.
in turn are received by the RF transmitter and mod-
The commands and telemetry are exchange via
ulated into Fequency shift keying (FSK) modula-
another radio. The telemetry radio 3DR is con-
tion. The radio then transmits this analog signal
nected trough USB to the computer, therefore not
onto the coaxial cable to the antenna which then
needing any kind of power input.
emits the electromagnetic wave onto the UAV.
In addition, attached to the computer there will
For the RC controller, the operator controls the
be all the human interface components: mouse, key-
UAV manually giving inputs by simply adjusting
board, microphone and headphones and/or speak-
the joystick in the controller. The percentage of
ers.
the movement of the joystick is encoded into PPM
Now, to better explain how everything is con-
packets and sent trough the transmitter.
nected, the electrical schematic is divided into five
The video System is comprised of a RF receiver
groups: power supply, computer system, video sys-
and an SD card video recorder. The video image
tem, radio system and other.
arrives the GCS in format PAL and is then recorded
The central indicator and control panel concept
in the SD card.
was done. Somewhere in the center of the human
Every system can be turn on and off indepen-
interface, a panel of switches capable of turning on
dently through the human interface through a cen-
and off each system was envisioned.
tral panel which will be explained ahead in this doc-
ument.
3.3.1 Power Supply
3.3. Eletrical Schematic
To begin with, a draft of the necessary interconnec- The networks are divided into four groups: Non
tions and wiring between the different components Essenstials@230VAC, Non Essentials@12VDC, Es-
and systems was done, Fig.6. While some wiring sentials@230VAC and Essentials@12VDC, each one
represent power, other symbolize the flow of data or of them has an associated LED that turns on in the
video stream. From here, more drafts where made central panel when its associated switch is turned
to think how spatially everything would fit together on. Another LED is connected in parallel with the
inside of the trailer. That is discussed later. battery to indicate that it is connected and feed-

4
 Figure 5: GCS System Architecture

ing the Essentials@12VDC network. A double con- 3.4. Power Budget

verter is included in order to continuously feed the In Tab.3.4 Tab.3.4 is summarized the power con-
Essentials@230VAC network. The rest of the sys- sumption both for the 230VAC systems and for
tems are connected to this four main networks. 12VDC systems, respectively.
As previously said in Sec.3.1.4 the GCS is divided
3.3.2 Computer System into four different grids. As the generator can pro-
vide 2000W, this is the maximum value which can-
The computer system is comprised of the computer, not e exceeded. For the ESSENTIALS@230VAC
four screen displays, keyboard and mouse and USB there will be four LCD monitors, one computer and
ports. These are all components which are essential all its periferals. Accounting also to a factor of loss,
for the success of the mission, therefore, they are giving a safety margin of 120 Watt, the total power
connected to the Essentials@230VAC grid. Mean- consumption is about 484 W.
ing that if any power failure happens, they will stay
on.
Table 1: ESSENTIALS@230VAC systems power
3.3.3 Video System consumption
System Qty Component Power [W]
The video system is composed of two video re- 1 Computer 300
Computer
4 LCD 64
ceivers, an Oracle Diversity, an SD recorder and
Loss Factor 120
a ten inch LCD screen display. All of it is located TOTAL 484
on the upper central panel as it will be presented
later on.
For the ESSENTIALS@12VDC it is considered a
loss factor of 10 W. The included systems are the
3.3.4 Radio System radio and video system. The total power consump-
The radio system is very simple. Just composed tion will be about 34 W.
of it self and the antenna to be used. The SMA
connector provides the ability to easily connect and Table 2: ESSENTIALS@12VDC systems power
disconnect any antenna that suits the operator right consumption
at the setup, before the mission. System Qty Component Power [W]
Radio 2 RF Module 4
2 Video Receiver 6
3.3.5 Other Video
1 SD Card Recorder 3
1 Monitor 2 10
Here are the lights and all other power plugs located 1 Oracle Diversity Controller 1.2
Loss Factor 10
all around the trailer. Since they add ons and are TOTAL 34.2
not relevant to the mission they are connected to
the Non Essenstials@230VAC power grid.
Taking into account these power consumptions it

5
 Figure 6: Electrical schematic draft

is now clear that the 2000 W power generator will

be enough to power this GCS. The operator can still
make use of the extra 1400 W for personal laptops
or any other devices that required electric energy.
4. Layout
This section aims to show the conceptual design of
the GCS along with its aspects and features in order
to operate correctly.
4.1. Overview
Figure 8: Operator Interface

4.2. Operator Interface

The Operator Interface is what exchanges informa-
tion between the UAS and the Operator. The oper-
ator shall be instructed with the manual and proce-
dures list before operating this GCS to prevent any
eventual accidents. In Fig.8 it is possible to see the
rendered image token from Solidworks CAD soft-
ware of the human interface panel. Marked with
numbers are: 1 – LCD screen display; 2 – Key-
board and mouse; 3 – Central indicator and control
panel ; 4 – Analog video system panel.
Figure 7: Ground Control Station
4.2.1 Electric Central Panel
In Fig.7 is what the GCS should look like when fully This where the Hager CDC225O residual current
assembled and operational. devices, the Hager SFB225 changeover switch and
A power generator is shown connected to the the Hager SFB225 modular switch are located. This
trailer to power up the GCS. One of the two work- is the central panel for all the 230VAC grids. The
stations as well the antenna system can be seen in energy first comes into here before flowing to the
this figure. rest of the GCS, therefore, enabling safety and con-
trol over the different 230VAC systems.

6
4.2.2 Central Indicator and Control Panel big MDF planks go through the six profiles. Two at
the center, side by side to ensure structural stability,
The Central indicator and control panel is where
and two to create the necessary distance and angle
the state of the different components is displayed
for the fixation of the LCDs. This way, the LCD
,Fig.9. Here the operator can know from which
screen position will be easy to adjust and align with
source the GCS is being powered from. Further-
its mdf front frame.
more, taking in consideration the definitions of
Moreover, thinking also on the cable manage-
Non Essentials@230VAC, Non Essentials@12VDC,
ment, the side perspective holes are for that pur-
Essentials@230VAC and Essentials@12VDC stipu-
pose.
lated in Sec.3.1.4, is can be known the state of this
power grids. 4.4. Cable Management
Taking into account all systems and components
described in previous sections, Fig.11 describes how
spatially they will be connected and positioned.
Around number one will be both generator and
grid power inputs. The double converter and bat-
tery will be there too. The wiring goes from one to
three, where the electric central panel is positioned.
The 230VAC switches are there. Furthermore, the
illumination LED lights represented as yellow, are
also connected between three and two. The inten-
sity regulators will be near number one.
Near number two there is the central indicator
and control panel where all the LED indicators are
displayed, and consequently, connected between one
and three. All the cables are meant to follow tech-
nical gutters.

4.4.1 Wiring
For the 230VAC grids, the current flowing through
the systems wont go further than 16A. That means
Figure 9: Central Indicator and Control Panel
that a section of 1.5mm2 is enough. For the 12VDC
4.3. Structure systems, looking at Fig.11 (a), the distance between
1 and 2 is about 3 m. In order to know what should
be the wire section area the drop voltage due to the
resistance of the cable shall be considered. An on-
line calculator [11] is used to ensure that the voltage
drop is about 3%, as recommended. By filling the
parameters in the calculator, at 12VDC, 3A, 1.5
mm2 section wire and 3 m distance from the load it
is concluded that the voltage drop is 2.5% below the
required, therefore, meaning that a 1.5mm2 section
wire is good enough for this application.
5. Implementation
Figure 10: Assembled MDF structure concept 5.1. Structure
model As the Aerospace laboratory has a CNC machine,
and the use of MDF was evidently a solution for this
The human interface panel is where the major com- purpose, the possibilities were many. After some
ponents are located. Such components must be well drafts, the final design was done. As the profiles
fixed and in case of the LCD, they have to be po- were being manufactured, Fig.12 by the CNC. The
sitioned with a tilt angle. Therefore, a structural fact that this CNC is not the best precision tool,
assembly that holds the LCDs, the central indica- the profiles were not finished yet. After that they
tor control panel, the analogical video system was were polished either with a drummel tool or with a
designed and conceived. wood sandpaper, Fig.12.
The assembly is composed of six pairs of glued As the manufacture process was a very time con-
MDF profiles as it can be seen in Fig.10(c). Four suming and the quality of the profiles were not the

7
 best due to the CNC machine being old, other so-
lutions were found, namely FalLab Lisboa.
After being manufactured and polished the pro-
files were glued together to form the ”V” shaped
supports.

Figure 13: FabLab Lisboa CNC machine manufac-

turing

At this point all the parts were been manufac-

tured and were ready for the assembly inside the
station. The structure was pre assembled outside
and then brought inside. The alignment was from
left to right, making sure that each part was well
fixed with screws and ”L” shaped metal plates. Af-
(a) Top view
ter that the technical gutter was fixed along with
one CEE.
5.2. Electrical
The electrical board panel was fixed in the first
place. The technical gutters all across the area con-
ceived for the wiring placement. Most of the wiring
was done at this time. Every time a new connection
was done, a subsequently test was performed right
after. This was a good way to know that the thing
were running as supposed.
The double converter was connected to station.
This enabled the possibility of having the LED
lights as well connected and their respective inten-
sity regulators. For safety reasons, this required the
fixation of the battery connectors. The short circuit
risk was minimized by screwing them to the plas-
(b) Side view
tic technical gutter. With this all the 12VDC wires
were connected.
Figure 11: GCS’s cable management draft
The central indicator and control panel, that was
previously assembled with all those switches and
LED indicators, is also connected to the station and
tested right after, Fig.14.
At this time two of the monitors have been fixed
along with their respective wiring connections. The
fixation was done using a standard LCD screen
holder with two screws on one of the diagonal
planks.
In addition, a small hatch was done in the exis-
Figure 12: IST laboratory CNC machine manufac-
tent wooden frame right at the center of the two
turing
working stations.

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5.2.1 Electrical Board and Central Panels

(a) Eletric board panel

(b) Central Indicator and Con-

trol Panel

Figure 14: Electrical board and central panels

Figure 16: GCS with the assembled antennas

Taking a closer look at the electrical board panel,
the Fig.14(a) shows both residual current devices
on the left. At the center is the source selec- In Fig.16 the GCS and the antennas on top can
tor. And finally, at the right just two simple 16A be seen. Since the testing was perform inside the
switches for the NONENSENTIALS@230 and ES- LAB, these antennas were positioned, but not used
SENTIALS@230, respectively. for these tests. These antennas are recommended
In Fig.14(b) is the central indicator and control for long range missions only.
panel. The video system with Both video receivers, 6. Conclusions
the FPV monitor and the SD card recorder are also A fully operational and versatile GCS for long range
above this panel as shown in Fig.15. and Long endurance UAVs was assembled.
5.3. Final Assembly and Basic Testing This GCS has numerous strengths. The fact that
With everything working and running, some tests it can be about eight hours running with the in-
were performed on spot. surance that it will never run out of energy during
The video stream was tested. The images ap- operations is a key aspect in any UAS operation.
peared to be clear as it can be seen in Fig.14(b). In addition, the fact of being a mobile GCS gives
For the MAVLINK connection, there was a similiar it another plus. As the mission can be anywhere,
test. With a pixhawk and the radios 3DR Robotics this creates possibilities that other ground stations
a flight was simulated. By openning the Mission won’t have. The fact, that there is enough space
Plannner on the desktop computer, the connec- for at least three person inside, is very useful too.
tion was done in less then one minute and runned This way, during an unexpected mission, the setup
smoothly during all the time. The video stream is very easy and fast with a crew of five. While two
kept running and recorded in the SD card during people – mechanic and the pilot – got to put the
this time. In Fig.15 it is possible to see the GCS UAV on the air manually, there are two GCS’s op-
running with the Mission Planner opened on the erators setting up the systems and the leader plans
top left screen. the mission, both inside the station. Once the UAV
For the PPM there was no test performed. is airborne the main operator assumes control of
the aircraft and starts sending it commands trough
mission planner.
Finally, many concepts were learned by imple-

9
 Figure 15: GCS running

menting this work. Many soft and hard skills too. [5] Alexandre Duarte. Development part of the
During research, a general idea for the working prin- structure of a long endurance electric UAV.
ciple of UAS was formed. Taking requirements, Master’s thesis, Universidade da Beira Inte-
transform them into design, assemble and test them rior(UBI), 2016.
is the art of system engineering which was applied
here in this work too. [6] Luı́s Freitas. Aerodynamic analysis of a for-
Now this GCS can have multi applications. Ei- ward–backward facing step pair on the upper
ther for the projects such like LEEUAV or any surface of a low-speed airfoil. Master’s thesis,
other project such like submarines, rc cars or even Universidade da Beira Interior(UBI), 2017.
a rocket GCS. [7] Riham Altawy. Security, privacy, and safety as-
The main innovative idea in this work was the pects of civilian drones: A survey. ACM Trans-
design of the support. It gives a clean ”v” shaped actions on Cyber-Physical Systems, 1:1–25, 11
format, giving the possibility to fix the LCD screens 2016.
with a desired angle and distance from the surface.
Also giving the comfort of clean space in the out- [8] ABUL KALAM KHAN. Ground control
side while racking all the wires and supports on the station, functional requirements. https:
inside. //khandronesorigin.com/2016/11/23/
ground-control-station-functional-requirements/,
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