1 Overview
2 Requirements
- 2.1 Intended use case
- 2.2 Laptop

Overview

Audience: TODO

WARG is looking to purchase a new laptop for F24 onwards.

Requirements

Intended use case

What the laptop is going to be used for.

The biggest requirement is that it’ll be used for the ground station, so it needs to have a bright screen, long battery life, and be durable.

Use case	Subteam	Software

Use case	Subteam	Software
Ground station	All	Mission Planner IMACS 2.0 Pathing

Electrical development	Electrical	Altium
Mechanical development	Mechanical	Solidworks
Groundside compute	Autonomy	Airside system

Laptop

How the laptop will fulfill the above requirements.

Property	Requirement	Reason

Property	Requirement	Reason
Operating System OS can be installed separately from the manufacturer (in fact, recommended to do so to avoid bloatware)	Windows	Mission Planner is Windows only.
CPU	Good enough to run ground station software, more performance is better if possible.	Additional flexibility for usage beyond ground station.
GPU	None.	Not mandatory.
RAM Additional memory can be installed separately if it is non soldered	>=16GB, more is better if possible.	8GB is not enough, additional flexibility for usage beyond ground station.
Storage Additional storage can be installed separately	>=256GB, more is better.	Additional flexibility for usage beyond ground station.
IO	Multiple USB-A at minimum, more is better.	You remembered to bring the dongle, right? No? Crap. WARG has SD card and HDMI adapters to USB-A, not sure about USB-A to USB-C.

Screen brightness	>=350 nits, more is better.	Ground station is outside, potentially in the sun. Reference: Stood outside with a 350 nit laptop, somewhat visible when not in direct sunlight M2 Air is 500 nits and it’s really bright
Screen size	>=13 inches, larger is better.	Surface area to see information.
Touch Screen	None.	Not mandatory.
Battery life Please note that a manufacturer’s advertized battery life is a lie, so divide their number by 3 when comparing to this requirement Most of the other requirements trade off with battery life (e.g. more powerful GPU will drain it faster, brighter screen will drain it faster)	>= 3 hours, longer is better. This requirement can be dropped if a large external battery is purchased	Ground station may not have access to power during flight tests. Flight tests rarely go longer than 2 hours and competition flight windows (even stretched) is max 1 hour. Competition also has power on ground.
Weight	None, lighter is better if possible.	Not being carried for long distances.
Durability	Survive regular transportation to non indoor environments.	Ground station is outside.
Expected lifespan	>=3 years, longer is better.	3-5 years is standard for a laptop (we’ll probably end up using it for longer).