AeroAstro Research Labs

The Aerospace Controls Laboratory investigates estimation and control systems for modern aerospace systems, with particular attention to distributed, multivehicle architectures. Example applications involve cooperating teams of UAVs or formation-flying spacecraft. The research goal is to increase the level of autonomy in these systems by incorporating higher-level decisions, such as vehicle-waypoint assignment and collision avoidance routing, into feedback control systems. Core competencies include optimal estimation and control, optimization for path-planning and operations research, receding-horizon/model predictive control, and GPS.

The Communications and Networking Research Group's primary goal is the design of network architectures that are cost effective, scalable, and meet emerging needs for high data-rate and reliable communications. To meet emerging critical needs for military communications, space exploration, and internet access for remote and mobile users, future aerospace networks will depend upon satellite, wireless and optical components. Satellite networks are essential for providing access to remote locations lacking in communications infrastructure; wireless networks are needed for communication between untethered nodes, such as autonomous air vehicles; and optical networks are critical to the network backbone and in high performance local area networks.

The MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory has had a worldwide reputation for research and teaching at the forefront of gas turbine technology for more than 60 years. GTL’s mission is to advance the state-of-the-art in fluid machinery for power and propulsion. The research is focused on advanced propulsion systems, energy conversion and power, with activities in computational, theoretical, and experimental study of: loss mechanisms and unsteady flows in fluid machinery; dynamic behavior and stability of compression systems; instrumentation and diagnostics; advanced centrifugal compressors and pumps for energy conversion; gas turbine engine and fluid machinery noise reduction and aero-acoustics; novel aircraft and propulsion system concepts for reduced environmental impact. Several experimental facilities include: a unique swirling flow test rig for centrifugal compressor diffuser analysis, a 15,000 SCFM continuous supersonic wind tunnel and air supply, a single-stage low-speed research compressor, a 500kW helicopter gas turbine engine test cell, a shock tube for reacting flow heat transfer analysis, and a range of one-of-a-kind experimental flow diagnostics. GTL also has unique computational and theoretical modeling capabilities in the areas of gas turbine fluid mechanics, turbomachinery, and aero-acoustics.

The Interactive Robotics Lab conducts research and develops technology to ease the integration of robotics and autonomous systems into human-centered work environments. This includes the design of algorithms for planning, decision-making, and control of autonomous systems that are modified to support safe, efficient and natural interaction with people. Research applications focuses on high-intensity and safety-critical applications including aerospace manufacturing, disaster response, and space operations.

The Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment addresses a major challenge facing the aviation industry today: understanding and reducing aviation’s environmental impacts. The lab advances our knowledge of how aviation impacts the environment and collaboratively develops mitigation strategies.

Current research thrusts are:

• Evaluating the climate and air quality impacts of aircraft emissions. This includes quantifying the impact of airport emissions on near-airport air quality, aircraft cruise emissions on global air quality, and contrails on regional climate.
• Developing tools to enable designers, policymakers, and researchers to evaluate policy and design decision’s environmental implications, including a quantitative understanding of uncertainty. These tools are used to inform international policy negotiations.
• Environmentally optimizing both ground and en route operations. Examples include developing and testing procedures for minimizing ground fuel burn, computing the air quality impacts of controller decisions in real-time, and developing metrics for the environmental performance of aircraft.
• Assessing potential alternative jet fuels that can reduce adverse climate and air quality impacts. This involves assessing the lifecycle environmental impacts of alternative fuel production and use, as well as broader environmental and economic implications.

Among other activities, the Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment hosts the headquarters of the Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction (PARTNER) – an FAA Center of Excellence with participation from 12 universities and 50 industry and government organizations.

The Man Vehicle Laboratory optimizes human-vehicle system safety and effectiveness by improving understanding of human physiological and cognitive capabilities, and developing appropriate countermeasures and evidence-based engineering design criteria. Research is interdisciplinary, and uses techniques from manual and supervisory control, signal processing, estimation, sensory-motor physiology, sensory and cognitive psychology, biomechanics, human factor engineering, artificial intelligence, and biostatistics. MVL has flown experiments on Space Shuttle Spacelab missions and parabolic flights, and has several flight experiments in development for the International Space Station. NASA, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and the FAA sponsor ground-based research. Projects focus on advanced space suit design and dynamics of astronaut motion, adaptation to rotating artificial gravity environments, spatial disorientation and navigation, teleoperation, design of aircraft and spacecraft displays and controls and cockpit human factors. Annual MVL MIT Independent Activities Period activities include ski safety research, and an introductory course on Boeing 767 systems and automation. MVL faculty also teach subjects in human factors engineering, space systems engineering, space policy, flight simulation, space physiology, aerospace biomedical and life support engineering, and the physiology of human spatial orientation.

Our research goals are to build unmanned vehicles that can fly without GPS through unmapped indoor environments, robots that can drive through unmapped cities, and to build social robots that can quickly learn what people want without being annoying or intrusive. Such robots must be able to perform effectively with uncertain and limited knowledge of the world, be easily deployed in new environments and immediately start autonomous operations with no prior information.

The Space Systems Laboratory engages in cutting-edge research projects with the goal of directly contributing to the current and future exploration and development of space. SSL's mission is to explore innovative concepts for the integration of future space systems and to train a generation of researchers and engineers conversant in this field. Specific tasks include developing the technology and systems analysis associated with small spacecraft, precision optical systems, and International Space Station technology research and development. The laboratory encompasses expertise in structural dynamics, control, thermal, space power, propulsion, microelectromechanical systems, software development and systems. Major activities in this laboratory are the development of small spacecraft thruster systems (see the Space Propulsion Laboratory) and researching issues associated with the distribution of function among satellites. In addition, technology is being developed for spaceflight validation in support of a new class of space-based telescopes that exploit the physics of interferometry to achieve dramatic breakthroughs in angular resolution.

SERG studies long-lived systems on Earth and in Space. This includes the design and operation of critical infrastructures such as industrial manufacturing, transportation, earth observation, defense, water, energy and food supply systems as well as the challenges of sustained human and robotic exploration and settlement of outer space. We develop validated models and simulations to support strategic decisions under uncertainty, including selection of technologies and system evolutionary pathways. Sponsors include national science and government agencies such as NASA, DARPA and the U.S. Navy, as well as non-profits and major industrial firms.
 

The increasingly complex systems we are building today enable us to accomplish tasks that were previously difficult or impossible. At the same time, they have changed the nature of accidents and increased the potential to harm not only life today but also future generations. Traditional system safety engineering approaches, which started in the missile defense systems of the 1950s, are being challenged by the introduction of new technology and the increasing complexity of the systems we are attempting to build. Software is changing the causes of accidents and the humans operating these systems have a much more difficult job than simply following pre-defined procedures.  We can no longer effectively separate engineering design from human factors and from the social and organizational system in which our systems are designed and operated.

The goal of the Laboratory for Systems Safety Research is to create new tools and processes that will allow us to engineer a safer world. Engineering safer systems requires multi-disciplinary and collaborative research based on sound system engineering principles, that is, it requires a holistic systems approach. LSSR has participants from multiple engineering disciplines and MIT schools as well as collaborators at other universities and in other countries. Current students are working on safety in aviation (aircraft and air transportation systems), spacecraft, medical devices and healthcare, automobiles, railroads, nuclear power, defense systems, energy, and large manufacturing/process facilities. Cross-discipline topics include:

• Hazard analysis
• Accident causality analysis and accident investigation
• Safety-guided design
• Human factors and safety
• Integrating safety into the system engineering process
• Identifying leading indicators of increasing risk
• Certification, regulation, and standards
• The role of culture, social, and legal systems on safety

The Technology Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Structures (TELAMS), known since its establishment as TELAC, has been dedicated to providing leadership in the advancement of the knowledge and capabilities of the composites and structures community through education of students, original research, and interaction with the community at large. This leadership continues today at TELAMS, with an emphasis on composite materials, as the research topics span a wide spectrum, from basic understanding of composite materials to their behavior in specific structural configurations, with the ultimate objective of gaining a sufficient understanding of the properties of a composite laminate's basic building block, and how these properties interact to determine properties of laminates and structures made of composite materials. Recently, the focus of the laboratory has broadened into other areas, and thus its renaming. These areas include multi-scale modeling and simulation of the mechanics of advanced materials used in the aerospace industry with emphasis on understanding the influence of micro-structural features of deformation and failure in their effective engineering response, computational modeling in solid mechanics and fluid-structure interaction problems, and design, fabrication, and testing of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), along with their associated materials and processes.