The Merlin has been developed using the same architecture and systems, such as the Wizard ground station that has been successfully operating our entire range unmanned vehicle systems on land, in the air and on the sea.
The Merlin ground station may be configured to control up to two Banshee, Snipe or Sprite targets simultaneously. It is packed in a rugged, moulded, military specification, 19’’ rack container to provide a truly mobile unit. Within the unit are mounted 20 Watt command link transmitters and telemetry link receivers (one or two off, depending on the number of targets being operated). The unit is fitted with the necessary decoders and encoders to allow it to transfer information and data to the computer unit, connectors for supplementary manual input controllers, and connectors for RF antennae.
The Merlin can be supplied with an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) and will operate on 110 or 220 volt mains supply.
The 20 Watt transmitters allow operation of aerial targets to a range of 100km using directional antennae. Use of Omni-directional antennae allows operation to 70km (RF line of sight must be maintained).