ROCKHAMPTON, Australia – The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) is field-testing two digital tools that have drastically sped up its ability to execute air missions, such as heliborne missions and air strikes.
At Exercise Wallaby, a Helicopter Decision Support System (Heli DSS) being trialled has cut the time taken to plan a flight mission from two hours to 20 minutes, freeing up pilots and ground controllers to focus on higher-order decision-making and contingency planning.
Meanwhile, an application called the Digitally-Aided Close Air Support (DACAS) has shortened the time needed to call an air strike by 50% to 80%.
Before the Heli DSS, two to three route planners had to pore over physical maps and scrutinise terrain contour lines – while factoring for weather conditions and troop locations – in order to chart flight paths.
Long planning times meant that pilots sometimes missed the small window of opportunity when it was optimal to carry out air missions and had to fly in less-than-ideal conditions, said Major Ho Leong Hock, a system developer from the RSAF Agile Innovation Digital (RAiD). RAiD is a start-up unit within the air force that deals with artificial intelligence and data analytics.
The new AI-enabled system uses discrete agents to process data from each domain, before an orchestrator layer brings them together and drafts a mission plan.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cai Weijun, Heli DSS project lead, said the system suggests routes to the pilots, but the mission plan is ultimately subject to human approval. With feedback from pilots, the system was improved between each of the five flights it had been used for so far.
Similarly, the DACAS application has shortened the time ground forces need to coordinate close air support missions with strike controllers.
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