The Lincoln Beaver Works UAV Systems Center is a research and teaching center dedicated to advancing multiple aspects of small UAV technologies. Within the center, Lincoln Laboratory staff, MIT faculty, and students collaborate side by side on challenging, multidisciplinary projects on the cutting edge of unmanned system development. Technical areas of focus include vehicle design, system fabrication and integration, detailed analysis and simulation, communication link architectures, command and control, flight testing and certification, and advanced payload development. The teaching and research professionals at the UAV Systems Center are committed to the development of students who are enthusiastic about unmanned systems and seek to make a difference on the national landscape.

Beaver Works Small UAV Initiative

Small UAVs have the potential to become a disruptive technology across a broad range of applications in coming years.  Agricultural monitoring, law enforcement, search and rescue, humanitarian aid, and disaster relief are some exciting mission areas that could benefit from small UAVs.  Small UAVs offer added maneuverability and agility compared with their larger counterparts and can be deployed with a much smaller footprint.  In addition, small UAVs equipped with sensors can provide high-resolution, close-in, and even in situ sensor data.  By “parallelizing” the search or mapping mission between many small autonomous UAVs, wide-area missions are feasible and scalable.

Beaver Works collaborators are conducting innovative research and development in small UAVs with new platforms and configurations, novel power sources, advanced human-machine interfaces, and miniaturized sensors.  This work will culminate in yearly demonstrations of small UAV technologies in each of several promising mission areas.