HOW IT WORKS PAGE

Even though the Marcus Zephyr is a very sophisticated piece of technology, anybody with some hands on skills can set up their own UAV command post in an afternoon. We call this our Plug and Play Design. The Marcus Zephyr and its ground station are designed so that you, the Customer, have only to plug things together and fly. No tools are necessary to assemble any component. For instance, the wings on the Marcus Zephyr come detached and easily plug into the fuselage with all of the mechanical and electrical components being connected in the process.

 
There are two main parts of the communication backbone involved with operation of your Marcus Zephyr; the ground station and the plane's electronic hardware. The ground control station includes tripod, antennas, video/audio receiver and radio modem. The ground station is operated with ground station software, and the UAV is operated by programming the Autopilot using the ground station.
 
At the core of the Marcus UAV electronic hardware is the Auto Pilot. This is what controls the flight characteristics such as Altitude, Pitch, Speed, and Wing Stability. The autopilot carries out its actions with use of the onboard servos. The servos are mechanical switches that actually move parts of the plane. Small adjustments to the Elevator, and Rudder are often made to keep the Marcus Zephyr on its course. The Autopilot relies on GPS readings to know its location at all times. Since the autopilot’s GPS receiver is in constant contact with GPS satellites, the autopilot can operate within a very small margin of error. The radio modem accepts data coming in from the ground station to program the autopilot for flight.
 
The video camera and microphone located on the Marcus Zephyr are connected to the audio/video transmitter located in the fuselage of the aircraft. Audio and video signals are transmitted to the ground station in real time.
 
The radio modems are your communication ports to control the Marcus Zephyr from the ground. There is one located on the UAV, and one located at the ground station. Each radio modem has both a transmitter and a receiver. This allows for a full duplex uplink to be made between the units. The ground station includes one of the radio modems, the video receiver, and a PC with the ground station software operating on it. The radio modem included in the ground station will be hooked up to your PC via a USB port.

Using the ground based software that comes with your purchase; you will utilize the uplink to update flight parameters in real time. There are two ways you may program your UAV for flight. One way involves changing individual flight characteristics such as Latitude, Longitude, Speed, and Altitude on your keyboard. The other method involves pointing and clicking to set waypoints on a map.

You will have two windows open generally when operating your UAV. One will be the cockpit window where you will program your flight paths and monitor telemetry, and the other will be a window for observing your video feed.
Your audio/video receiver will be part of the ground station harnessing the UAV's audio/video feed and can be plugged into any audio/video accepting source.
Using a Laptop PC, you will need a Video Capture Device to harness the video feed coming in.

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