The REEF Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory: A collaboration hub expediting flight capabilities for the U.S. Department of defense and academic research

The field of aerial robotics is growing rapidly, along with the promise of assisting human operators with tasks that are hazardous, inaccessible, or time consuming [1]. Military and law enforcement organizations are especially interested in such capabilities due to the naturally hazardous nature of their missions, driving them to become early supporters and adopters. A particularly challenging mission is the exploration of unknown indoor environments, which has potential applications in exploring and clearing enemy compounds, searching for accident survivors, or responding to active shooters. Multirotor vehicles have been proposed and occasionally used in such scenarios, but as capabilities increase, so does the complexity of the hardware and software. As a result, researchers interested in exploring this field, as well as those in myriad other fields that depend on aerial experimentation, face an increasingly high barrier to entry: establishing flight capabilities. This article is intended to help aspiring researchers get their aerial robotics experiments off the ground.