Overview
The PRST Software suite from ICS consist of four main components, all intended to facilitate the creation of a STANAG 4586 compatible UAV system. The STANAG (STANdardization AGreement) 4586 is a specification which will allow members of the NATO alliance to share information obtained by their Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). The STANAG 4586, entitled "Standard Interfaces of the Unmanned Control System (UCS) for NATO UAV Interoperability", is still within the ratification process. Our implementation is based on the latest documents released from NATO which is Edition 2 Errata 5.
PRST Base System
The PRST is a general ground Core UAV Control Station (CUCS) which also has the ability to control UGVs and UUVs. The system is not limited to only one vehicle at a time but can receive data from multiple vehicles in parallel thereby enabling it to combine data from several sources. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is extendable and based on displays contained in DLLs. All displays can be resized and positioned individually to any configuration. Display configurations can be saved and automatically loaded. The GUI also allows displays to be positioned across multiple monitors. The number of monitors that can be used with the system is only limited by the Windows XP / Windows Vista operating system which, without third party applications, supports up to 10 monitors. The PRST Base System supports up to interoperability level 4 (LOI) of the STANAG 4586, which means that it doesn't include launch and recovery of the UAV. According to the STANAG 4586 there are no generic messages for these procedures because they should be implemented using user defined messages.
Features:
- Steering Mode Selection. Currently supported steering modes are Waypoint, Loiter point and manual
- Joystick Input Control.
- Subsystem Status Alert Alarm Panel with Alarm Text display. Support for user defined messages for sending JPEG images and HTML files from VSM to PRST system upon alarm indication.
- Vehicle Light Control Panel for standard lights (Nav, Nav IR, Strobe, Strobe IR, NVD, reserved, Landing, Landing IR)
- Complete recording/replay capability of telemetry and video.
- Ground Collision Warning System.
- Remote Display Support (HTTP and Java Script).
- Windows XP and Windows Vista compatible.
Mission Planner (Purchased Separately)
To support the creation of waypoint lists for Steering Mode "Waypoint" we have developed a separate application which makes use of the 3D Terrain Display and the Map displays mentioned above. Each Mission is saved as a XML file and can be edited later. Included is an altitude graph which draws a terrain profile when 3D terrain database coverage is available.
Features:
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Mission New / Open / Save functionality
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Altitude Graph for terrain profile with below ground warning.
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Sensor Control
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Parallel visualization of path in both 3D and map.
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Waypoint action settings.
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Ground Collision Warning System.
Report Wizard (Purchased Separately)
Report Wizard is used to facilitate the creation of reports after a mission. It enables the user to quickly indicate objects of interest during a mission by a simple mouse click in the Video Sensor Control Display ,for example threats, and then go through this list after the mission to comment and identify the objects. When the user is finished a report is generated as an PDF, Word or Excel document. The report is stored in a SQL database file to separate different vehicles and report occasions.
