LockMart Integrates Latest Ground Control Station Technology with Fury UAV: To increase expeditionary capabilities in its long endurance Group 3 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), Lockheed Martin recently fielded its newest Expeditionary Ground Control Station, or "xGCS", for use with the Fury UAS.
Following its development and manufacturing in Huntsville, Ala., xGCS shipped and was integrated with Fury in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The first xGCS unit was delivered in early 2014 and has completed initial flight testing in preparation for upcoming Fury UAS deployments.
The small and rugged xGCS provides all processing and communications support electronics needed for Fury UAS ground control operations, as well as all supported payload tasking, processing, exploitation and dissemination. Because the xGCS is reliable, powerful and suitable to the most remote deployment locations, it delivers unprecedented flexibility to the Fury UAS.
"The Fury UAS is an expeditionary platform with best-in-industry capabilities," said Jay McConville, director of business development for Lockheed Martin's Fury UAS. "It is an Advanced Group 3 UAS with significant increases to endurance, payload capacity, communications capability, and advanced mission management.
Often times our warfighters are struggling with the 'tyranny of distance.' Fury gives them a toolset to tackle these challenges. For these reasons we needed a ground control hardware implementation that was rugged, light-weight, and incredibly powerful. The xGCS has met all of our requirements and expectations."
