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Advantages
The major advantage with Pelican is that the Pelican platform avoids the airspace restrictions and other complications associated with unmanned aircraft operations. CIRPAS’ Pelican has been used extensively in urban exercises where a Predator or other UAV would be difficult or impossible to fly due to FAA restrictions. The Pelican’s Skyball can be operated by any Predator based Ground Control Station if the proper software is installed. An additional fact to note is that the Pelican system is much less costly than a Predator system to deploy and operate
The Pelican UAV Surrogate System consists of the Pelican, the Predator Ground Control Station (GCS), the Predator Ground Data Terminal (GDT), a 35KW Generator, and various ground support equipment. The Data link between the Pelican and GDT/GCS is identical to Predator’s Line of Site (LOS) link
The more the military can work with UAV technology, even through a surrogate, the more likely UAV technology can be worked into operating concepts, doctrine, leadership and education for joint war fighting. The Pelican has been used as a surrogate UAV in six major DoD Training Exercises since 2001, providing the military with vital Predator experience that they otherwise would not receive.
The Pelican air vehicle can also be integrated with a variety of different payloads and provides an excellent test bed for payloads that are intended for eventual integration into the Predator.
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