In doing some research on ground stations, I came across FalconView - an open source pc based mapping software."FalconView is a PC based Mapping Application developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute for the Department of Defense.The software is widely used by the US DoD and Allied countries, but historically it has not been available to the general public. Thanks to an initiative by the US Air Force, we have begun releasing a Free and Open Source version of FalconView."Guys from AeroVironment integrated it into their ground station. I came accros all this by vatching a video about Puma uav - link to video (it's in two parts, there is a comircial at the begineeing and middle of the video)Actually on EngineringTV you can find other informative videos about UAVs, robotics, and another engineering stuff.Maybe in future we'll integrate FalconView with ArduPilot GCS :)
A route / waypoints editor (GPlan) has recently been added to the Open Source version. That combined with FalconView's plug-in API should be enough to put together a really nice GCS. I think that many of the existing FalconView Open Source plug-ins such as GPS, Predator UAS, Cursor on Target, and Terrain Masking could come in handy as well.
@Morli: hand-held ground station and FalconView are mentioned in the second part of the video. To see full video don't stop it or navigate away when there are commercials, just let them play out (there are two ads one at the very beginning and one in the middle of the video)
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http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/falconview/