Today, UAVs are a critical dimension to the SAF’s transformation into a 3rd Generation combat force. However, they currently operate in restricted airspaces with other UAVs and manned aircraft.

To overcome this challenge, DSO studied, developed and evaluated the algorithms to equip a UAV with the intelligence to execute manoeuvres and prevent potential collisions with other air vehicles. This relieves a human operator of the need to ensure the de-confliction of a UAV’s flight path, enabling the operator to focus on the mission plan.

We partnered Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) to implement the algorithms for flight experiments using their simulation test bed.

In order to reduce the weight of a UAV, composite materials are used to replace its metallic air frame. As composite materials have poor electrical conductivity and are unable to withstand a direct lightning strike, this poses a challenge for UAVs operating in a tropical climate, which are subject to lightning conditions.

DSO’s collaboration with the Centre Studies and Research in Electromagnetic Protection (CERPEM) and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), to compare various protection materials against direct lightning strike, has yielded exciting results, with the successful testing of various electromagnetic properties from 13 different material samples.

DSO, together with our US-based collaborator, The Arlington Institute (TAI), successfully built the Large Integrated Search and Analysis System – a system with a synergistic suite of tools that facilitates the collection, management and analysis of large amounts of textual information.

DSO developed the Natural Language Processing (NLP) Tool - a key tool in this system that provides many advanced analytic capabilities.

With the success of LISA, it was customised together with our NLP for intelligence applications, as well as bio-medical surveillance to detect natural disease outbreaks and bioterrorist attacks. The DSO NLP was also used in the Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) System to help analysts process unstructured textual information for strategic early warning to national security threats.

With pilots’ helmets incorporating new devices such as night vision and cueing systems, this increases the load on the pilot’s neck, which affects performance and could lead to injury.

In collaboration with the US Air Force Research Laboratory (USAFRL), we developed advanced computational models to simulate a human’s response, in particular the neck, to high-speed ejection conditions.

With these models, it can reduce the dependency on costly experiments (eg. rocket sled tests) to evaluate helmet design for safety and performance-aiding functions.

The inception of SONDRA, a Joint Research Laboratory comprising four partners (ONERA, Supélec, DSTA, NUS) was sparked off by the active research collaboration between DSO and DSTA. It conducts research in areas important to Singapore’s national defence and security, and focuses on fundamental scientific and engineering issues.

The areas of research for the initial period will focus on advanced electromagnetics and radar. It is envisaged that as SONDRA becomes more established, research may expand to other areas such as aerodynamics and optics.

DSO has collaborated with SONDRA on projects such as electromagnetic signal propagation modelling, compact antenna design, and a radar concept study via a French PhD programme involving supervisors from SONDRA. In the pipeline are plans for senior scientists’ exchanges in the future between DSO and SONDRA on advanced radar research.