The AAI RQ-7 Shadow is an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by the United States Army, Australian Army, Swedish Army, Turkish Air Force and Italian Army for reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and battle damage assessment. Launched from a trailer-mounted pneumatic catapult, it is recovered with the aid of arresting gear similar to jets on an aircraft carrier. Its gimbal-mounted, digitally stabilized, liquid nitrogen-cooled electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera relays video in real time via a C-band line-of-sight data link to the ground control station (GCS).
AAI RQ-7 Shadow
Soldier performing pre-flight inspections on a RQ-7B Shadow in Afghanistan, 2019
The RQ-7B leaves its launcher.
A Shadow 600 UAV
UAV ground control station
UAV ground control station (GCS) is a land- or sea-based control centre that provides the facilities for human control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. It may also refer to a system for controlling rockets within or above the atmosphere, but this is typically described as a Mission Control Centre.
The inside of the RQ-7A Shadow 200 GCS
The inside of the Bayraktar TB2 GCS
Two ground control stations of Ukrainian Air Force Bayraktar TB2
[1] Worthington Sharpe Wing GCS an example of a portable UAV Ground Control Station (drone GCS)
![[1] Worthington Sharpe Wing GCS an example of a portable UAV Ground Control Station (drone GCS)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/%22Wing_GCS%22_Portable_Ground_Control_Station_for_UAVs_%28drones%29_from_Worthington_Sharpe.jpg/640px-%22Wing_GCS%22_Portable_Ground_Control_Station_for_UAVs_%28drones%29_from_Worthington_Sharpe.jpg)