An initial seed grant of A$45 million per 12 months can be awarded to 2 latest laboratories on the Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and DSO National Laboratories, Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen said in Parliament on Friday (March 3).
“Modern armed forces are technology-driven and the next-generation SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) is even more so,” he said. “Our defense technology organizations will prepare to support change.”
To support more experimentation and innovation, DSO will establish a robotics laboratory in April this 12 months, and DSTA will expand to incorporate an analytics and artificial intelligence laboratory.
In the primary case, defense engineers will collaborate on prototyping, integration, simulation and testing of systems ahead of field trials for the SAF. “Work on robotics has already started,” Dr. Ng said. “Six soldiers of the Singapore Infantry Regiment are currently experimenting with unmanned aerial and ground vehicles to perform missions. The Navy has gone further and is introducing unmanned surface vehicles into operations that may navigate and autonomously avoid collisions.
“The SAF, in cooperation with the Ministry of Home Affairs, has already developed countermeasures against potential drone attacks. These systems were implemented during the last NPR (National Day Parade).”
The latest DSTA laboratory will use real-time information that will be obtained from the Internet of Things and platforms, the minister said.
“The potential that will be realized is gigantic. For example, our Singapore Maritime Crisis Center monitors over 1,500 business shipping vessels in our waters every single day. It uses artificial intelligence to generate unique signatures for every of them by collating information from multiple sources, including social media. It then detects any deviations from this signature,” he explained.
“This AI-based method detected a possible ISIS supporter on board an oil tanker in 2015. The person was banned from disembarking in Singapore. Finding this needle in a big haystack is only possible with modern means.”
Singapore will even host the inaugural Defense Technology Summit in early 2018. The biennial summit can be organized by DSTA along with Singapore Universities, A*STAR and government agencies comparable to GovTech, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, National Research Foundation and the Singapore Economic Development Board.
“Singapore can lead in defense technology even though we are small,” Dr Ng said. “The summit will provide a global platform to invite leading figures and luminaries to share their views, provide a window into the future, enable us to network and increase access to new ideas and innovations.”
In his speech, Dr Ng also revealed that there are roughly 5,000 defense engineers and scientists working in Singapore, and the variety of scholarships and awards on offer is anticipated to extend by 40 percent – to 170 from the present 120 – by 2025.
Source: Channel News Asia
