Some of the corridors used in the facility were the same ones used in the Enterprise in Star Trek.
First episode where MacGyver and Pete Thornton are part of the Phoenix Foundation, as opposed to DXS.
The automated defense robots are very similar to the Daleks from Doctor Who. The Daleks were created by Terry Nation who wrote several of the opening gambits from season one of MacGyver.
The schematic shown for the facility is the same one use for the Wildfire facility in The Andromeda Strain.
Dr. Ludlum says the defense robot daleks have 30 Kw lasers. For perspective , a 16 Kw laser can be used to cut through 2 inch steel; a 30 Kw Army laser punched through a car that was one mile away.