[9] In 1932 Charles Stark Draper, an MIT aeronautics professor, founded a teaching laboratory to develop the instrumentation needed for tracking, controlling and navigating aircraft.

[14] In 2017, a formerly open-air courtyard between the original buildings was converted into an enclosed 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) multistory atrium to accommodate security scanning, reception, semipublic areas, temporary exhibition space, and employee dining facilities.

[15][14] The open, airy interior space, designed by Boston architects Elkus Manfredi, features a green wall planting and plentiful seating.

[16][17][18] A primary focus of the laboratory's programs throughout its history has been the development and early application of advanced guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) technologies to meet the needs of the US Department of Defense and NASA.

The laboratory contributed to the development of inertial sensors, software, and other systems for the GN&C of commercial and military aircraft, submarines, strategic and tactical missiles, spacecraft, and uncrewed vehicles.

More recently, emphasis has shifted to research in innovative space navigation topics, intelligent systems that rely on sensors and computers to make autonomous decisions, and nano-scale medical devices.

Military inertial navigation systems (INS) cannot totally rely on GPS satellite availability for course correction (which is necessitated by gradual error growth or "drift"), because of the threat of hostile blocking or jamming of signal.

[21] In 2010 Draper Laboratory and MIT collaborated with two other partners as part of the Next Giant Leap team to win a grant towards achieving the Google Lunar X Prize send the first privately funded robot to the Moon.

[24] As of 2013[update], at a personal scale, Draper was developing a garment for use in orbit that uses Controlled Moment Gyros (CMGs) that creates resistance to movement of an astronaut's limbs to help mitigate bone loss and maintain muscle tone during prolonged space flight.

[30][31] As of September 2023, Draper and ispace are developing a lunar lander called APEX 1.0 to deliver CLPS payloads to the moon in 2026.

[33] As of 2009[update], the US Department of Homeland Security funded Draper Laboratory and other collaborators to develop a technology to detect potential terrorists with cameras and other sensors that monitor behaviors of people being screened.

In a demonstration of the technology, the project manager Robert P. Burns explained that the system is designed to distinguish between malicious intent and benign expressions of distress by employing a substantial body research into the psychology of deception.

This entails managing the vehicle, communications and ground control systems allow NAVs to function autonomously to carry a sensor payload to achieve the intended mission.

[35] In 2009, Draper collaborated with the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary to develop an implantable drug-delivery device, which "merges aspects of microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, with microfluidics, which enables the precise control of fluids on very small scales".

The device is a "flexible, fluid-filled machine", which uses tubes that expand and contract to promote fluid flow through channels with a defined rhythm, driven by a micro-scale pump, which adapts to environmental input.

[37] Laboratory staff worked in teams to create novel navigation systems, based on inertial guidance and on digital computers to support the necessary calculations for determining spatial positioning.

Draper Laboratory conducts a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) K–12 and community education outreach program, which it established in 1984.

[52] These funds include support of internships, co-ops, participation in science festivals and the provision of tours and speakers-is an extension of this mission.

The hands-on invention workspace operated by the Smithsonian Institution is free to all visitors, and focuses on educational activities for children aged 6 to 12 years.