2011 Annual Report - MIT Lincoln Laboratory

technology investments
Emerging Research Thrusts
The 2011 investments focused on three areas that exploit the Laboratory’s strengths in sensors
and communication technologies and that address emerging threats to national security.
Autonomous Systems
Autonomous systems couple unmanned aerial, ground,
and maritime vehicles with autonomy algorithms and
technologies to enable new system capabilities and
amplify the effectiveness of human-robot teams. The
Laboratory’s autonomous system effort is focused on
robust operation of autonomous systems in complex
and unpredictable environments; enhanced understanding
and trust between humans and robots; and
persistent, shared perception and reasoning.
Recent key accomplishments include
■ A 22 km demonstration of an autonomous ground
vehicle’s route re-traversal while the vehicle
maintains a standoff distance ahead of a manned
follower vehicle. The milestone is part of a project
investigating robust navigation through unstructured
outdoor terrain.
■ The transfer of robot-based, GPS-denied, mapping
technology to a mission-focused advanced
technology demonstration. In a collaborative effort
with MIT campus, the mapping technology is being
extended to a body-worn system with video and
lidar sensors.
10 2011 Annual Report
■ The application of a cognitive functional model of
inner rehearsal to solve a simulated robotic searchand-rescue
task. The experiment illustrates an
alternative bioinspired approach to autonomy that
seeks to effect artificial cognition through emulation
of human cognitive and neural processes.
Quantum Information Science
Quantum information science (QIS) addresses the
investigation and application of quantum mechanical
phenomena for the purposes of sensing, communicating,
and processing information in ways that
dramatically exceed conventional, classical means.
There is significant national interest in the long-term
applications of QIS technologies, and the Laboratory
continues to make targeted investments in QIS.
The Laboratory continued to distinguish itself in the
QIS area with
■ Improvements in the design, materials science,
fabrication, and testing of superconducting qubits, a
leading “artificial atom” technology manufactured in
the Microelectronics Laboratory. In a collaboration
with MIT campus and NEC Japan, experiments
demonstrated advanced microwave methods with
BELOW, FROM LEFT:
A Black-I Robotics
Landshark ground
platform with custom
Laboratory hardware and
autonomy algorithms
serves as an extensible
outdoor autonomous
ground-vehicle test bed;
a new laboratory space
housing a magnetooptical
trap (MOT) is
enabling work in trappedion
quantum computing.
Here, strontium ions are
held in a MOT before
being individually loaded
into a superconducting
ion trap that operates at a
temperature of 4.5 Kelvin.