Edd Grant is Head of Software at Callen-Lenz. With over 20 years experience in website and software development, Edd reflects on the opportunity to revolutionise Ground Control Systems into something fitting for the future of aerospace.
There has been a lot of recent news coverage around how air superiority is moving away from vastly expensive and complex crewed platforms to cheaper and more expendable unmanned air systems. But the way these UAVs are controlled needs to evolve too.
A traditional GCS (ground control station) may consist of a couple of rugged laptops and supporting peripherals in a flight case on a folding table, however anyone who has been deployed will tell you that these setups are far from portable, especially if you must carry it with you, or as in one case from our user research, jump out of a plane with it.
Recently there have been advances in creating more portable battle management systems such as TAK, but while they may have solved the portability problem, to a generation who grew up with iPhones the user interface is cluttered, poorly designed, and far from intuitive. Can we create something that’s both functional and beautiful?
There are many considerations. While the aim is for the software to be device-agnostic, the reality is that not all platforms will be suitable. The target device needs to be sturdy, have excellent battery life, and work across a range of harsh environments which could include dramatic variances in temperature, visibility, and humidity. And have you ever tried using a smartphone while wearing winter gloves? So, while a cheap tablet from Amazon may run the software, it won’t be very practical in these demanding conditions.
Thankfully there are already companies solving this problem, building custom enclosures around tablets that address the above and will feel instantly familiar to anybody that has used a Nintendo Switch. While not cheap, these off-the-shelf devices are readily available and still cost a fraction of a traditional GCS setup.
Our challenge is building the software. As somebody from a web development background, I can confidently say that no application is ever finished. At a bare minimum, you will need to apply regular security updates to dependencies. This is not something the aviation, defence or other heavily regulated industries are used to, however it is something they need to embrace, because if software can’t be iteratively updated, fixed, improved and scaled, you will end up rebuilding the whole thing every ~5 years (the situation we are in now.)
Building a web application can solve this problem, because we have already bought into an agile approach, continuous integration and deployment, and we are comfortable that our MVP release won’t be perfect. We will create a better product through small and regular releases and gradually improving the application through regular feedback, rather than trying to get it right first time; because what we think is right now, will not be what our customers want in 18 months’ time.
It is an exciting time to be solving this problem, the opportunities are huge, and we are embracing the new challenge.
Next post