Delair and ECA Group Develop Multi-Drone Ground Station

Delair and ECA Group have announced that the two companies have co-developed a new generation of ground control station (GCS). The GCS can be used to operate ECA’s IT180 family of VTOL mini-UAS (unmanned aerial system), as well Delair’s line of drones, including the fixed-wing DT26X.

The GCS is based around a ruggedized laptop specifically designed to withstand the harshness of field missions. The operator can plan missions, pilot the drone and analyze data from embedded sensors in real time. The intuitive system allows drone pilots to operate with different types of terrain and missions.

Fixed-wing UAVs such as the DT26X and rotary-wing UAVs such as the IT180, are complementary and can be used together on missions with this new GCS. The fixed-wing aircraft can provide surveillance of an area and the rotary-wing will provide support after detection of a threat.

“Thanks to the new GCS, collaborative drone missions are gaining considerably in performance. This type of mission now becomes easier to manage via a single interface and by a single operator. With the new ground station the intervention forces gain especially in precision of information and intervention reactivity,” said Francis Duruflé, sales manager for Aerial Drones business at ECA Group.

“The new multiplatform ground station will also allow its users to optimize the training of their UAV pilot crews as well as the ability for the same pilot to switch from one drone to another in a very intuitive way. Another important criterion, the logistic constraint of the material to be transported, which will be reduced by using the new GCS.”, said Charles-Etienne Gariel, sales director at Delair.