In a remarkable achievement, MIT Lincoln Laboratory has secured nine prestigious R&D 100 Awards in 2021, recognizing their groundbreaking technological innovations. Since its establishment in 1963, this renowned awards program has consistently honored the 100 most revolutionary technologies successfully implemented or commercialized annually. An independent panel of expert judges meticulously selects the winners, with announcements made by R&D World, a leading online publication serving the global research and engineering community.
The award-winning technologies showcase remarkable diversity in their applications. One innovation empowers medical personnel to perform critical life-saving interventions directly at emergency sites, while another assists first responders in locating survivors trapped beneath debris. Additional breakthroughs introduce novel approaches to microscale motor construction, optical fiber array integration, and electromagnetic interference reduction in circuit boards. Several of these distinguished innovations leverage advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable unprecedented capabilities.
Next-generation imaging systems, including sophisticated lidars and high-resolution wide-field-of-view sensors, require substantial on-chip data processing capabilities. However, developing this functionality for specialized applications has traditionally been prohibitively expensive. Addressing this challenge, Lincoln Laboratory has engineered a revolutionary field-programmable imaging array that makes high-performance on-chip digital processing accessible across numerous emerging imaging applications.
This innovative technology functions as a universal digital back end, adaptable to virtually any optical detector type. Once integrated with a specific detector front end, the design cycle for new applications utilizing that detector technology can be dramatically accelerated, reducing development time from months to weeks.
The groundbreaking Free-Space Quantum Network Link Architecture facilitates the generation, distribution, and interaction of entangled photons across free-space connections. These capabilities are essential for advancing emerging quantum network applications, including networked quantum computing and distributed sensing systems.
This sophisticated system integrates three primary technological components: a gigahertz clock-rate, three-stage pump laser system; a source producing spectrally pure, long-duration entangled photons; and an innovative pump-forwarding architecture that synchronizes quantum systems across free-space links with remarkable precision. The architecture was successfully demonstrated across a 3.2-kilometer free-space atmospheric link between two buildings at Hanscom Air Force Base.
The Global Synthetic Weather Radar delivers radar-like weather imagery and advanced forecasts for regions lacking actual weather radar coverage or with limited range capabilities. This cutting-edge technology generates synthetic images using sophisticated machine learning algorithms that integrate satellite data, lightning information, numerical weather models, and radar truth data to produce highly accurate predictions.
Developed in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, this technology assists mission planners in scheduling operations in remote global regions. GSWR's reliable imagery and forecasts also provide valuable decision-making support for emergency responders, as well as the transportation, agriculture, and tourism industries.
The Guided Ultrasound Intervention Device represents the first technology enabling medics or emergency medical technicians to catheterize major blood vessels in pre-hospital environments. This life-saving procedure can significantly reduce mortality from hemorrhage following traumatic injuries.
Utilizing GUIDE, a medic scans a patient's target area with an integrated ultrasound probe. The device employs advanced artificial intelligence software to locate the femoral vessel in real-time and guides the medic through a gamified display interface. Once properly positioned, the device inserts a needle and guide wire into the vessel, after which the medic can complete the catheterization process. Similar to the transformative impact of automated external defibrillators, GUIDE empowers non-specialists to perform critical life-saving interventions directly at emergency scenes.
Microhydraulic motors represent a revolutionary approach to creating movement at the microscale. These remarkably small actuators are constructed by layering thin, disc-shaped polymer sheets atop microfabricated electrodes, with droplets of water and oil inserted between the layers. When voltage is applied to the electrodes, the surface tension of the droplets is distorted, causing them to move and rotate the entire disk structure.
These precise, powerful, and efficient motors could enable the development of shape-changing materials, self-folding displays, or specialized microrobots for medical procedures, opening new frontiers in microscale engineering.
A fiber array launcher serves as a subsystem that positions an array of optical fibers and shapes the laser beams emanating from them. Traditional launchers consist of numerous small components that can become misaligned due to vibration and are constructed from inefficient materials that absorb light. To overcome these limitations, the laboratory developed an innovative monolithic fiber array launcher.
Constructed from a single piece of glass, this launcher occupies merely one-tenth the volume of traditional arrays and demonstrates significantly reduced susceptibility to thermo-optic effects, enabling scaling to substantially higher laser powers and channel counts.
The Motion Under Rubble Measured Using Radar technology was specifically developed to assist rescue teams in saving lives within complex disaster environments. This remotely operated system is mounted on a robotic ground vehicle for rapid deployment and utilizes radar to transmit low-frequency signals capable of penetrating walls, rubble, and debris.
Returning signals are digitized and processed using both classical signal processing techniques and innovative machine learning algorithms to determine the depth at which life-indicating motion, such as breathing, is detected from individuals buried beneath rubble. Search-and-rescue personnel monitor these detections in real-time on mobile devices, significantly reducing time-consuming search efforts and enabling the timely recovery of survivors.
Spectrally Efficient Digital Logic comprises a set of digital logic building blocks that operate with inherently low electromagnetic interference (EMI) emissions.
EMI emissions cause interference between electrical components and present security vulnerabilities. These emission levels are often discovered late in the electronics development process, once all components are integrated, making corrections prohibitively expensive. SEDL is specifically designed to mitigate EMI problems while maintaining compatibility with traditional logic, providing designers the flexibility to construct systems using entirely SEDL components or hybrid configurations combining traditional logic and SEDL. It also offers comparable size, cost, and clock speed relative to traditional logic implementations.
Developed in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration, the Traffic Flow Impact Tool assists air traffic control managers in managing disruptions caused by severe weather conditions, such as thunderstorms.
The tool employs an innovative machine learning technique to integrate multiple convective weather forecast models and calculate a metric called permeability—a measure of usable airspace within a given area. These permeability predictions are displayed through an intuitive user interface, enabling managers to proactively plan for weather impacts on air traffic flow.
Since 2010, Lincoln Laboratory has received an impressive 75 R&D 100 Awards. These awards recognize the laboratory's successful transfer of unclassified technologies to industry and government sectors. Additionally, numerous technology transitions occur annually for classified projects. This technology transfer remains central to the laboratory's mission as a federally funded research and development center.
"Our R&D 100 Awards highlight the significant, ongoing technology development and transition success at the laboratory," states Eric Evans, director of Lincoln Laboratory. "We've achieved comparable success with our classified work as well. We're tremendously proud of everyone involved in these innovative programs."
Editors of R&D World officially announced the 2021 R&D 100 Award recipients during virtual ceremonies broadcast on October 19, 20, and 21.
