  The design of a prototype to carry out take-off and flight tests with
tethered aircrafts is presented. The system features a ground station equipped
with a winch and a linear motion system. The motion of these two components is
regulated by an automatic control system, whose goal is to accelerate a
tethered aircraft to take-off speed using the linear motion system, while
reeling-out the tether from the winch with low pulling force and avoiding
entanglement. The mechanical, electrical, measurement and control aspects of
the prototype are described in detail. Experimental results with a
manually-piloted aircraft are presented, showing a good matching with previous
theoretical findings.
