MIT Lincoln Laboratory to support CDA research on BVLOS drones

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL) is joining forces with the Commercial Drone Alliance (CDA) so that beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations in the US can scale up safely.

The MIT LL is a federally funded research and development center under the US Department of Defense. The CDA, on the other hand, is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the commercial use of drones. It brings together end-users of industrial drones, manufacturers, service providers, advanced air mobility companies, as well as drone security companies.

The joint research by these two entities will focus on enhancing a free, open-source database of nationwide aircraft traffic density that was first created by the MIT LL. The study will build upon the work that NASA and the FAA have done previously in the field of BVLOS drones and address high-priority capability gaps and barriers to enable safe integration of long-range, autonomous drones in the national airspace.

“The potential benefits of commercial drone operations beyond the visual sight of the operator are significant, from responding to disasters, inspecting our nation’s infrastructure, delivering medical supplies, and so much more. But the regulatory approval processes have been hampered by a perceived lack of data that accurately characterizes the national airspace,” says Lisa Ellman, CDA’s executive director.

As such, the joint research will strive to provide federal regulators and the wider industry with concrete data, so that scaled BVLOS operations can become a reality in the US.

Andrew Weinert, technical staff at the surveillance systems group of the MIT LL, adds, “MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s mission is to turn concepts into reality through innovative research and development enabled by state-of-the-art facilities, such as New England’s fastest, most powerful supercomputing center. We’ve been spearheading the transition of these capabilities to the community as open-source software projects that are expected to accelerate safe UAS operations. We look forward to working closely with the Commercial Drone Alliance to provide much-needed data to the entire commercial drone industry, enabling operations in the United States while providing global leadership to support worldwide operations.”

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