MOUNTAIN HOME, Idaho – A bevy of new technologies, including robots and artificial intelligence (AI), are being put through their paces in a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) exercise in the United States.

An upgraded smart command post that can warn commanders of potential collateral damage, and unmanned systems that can survey the battlefield and inform troops of the situation as it unfolds are part of Exercise Forging Sabre – one of the SAF’s most complex and high-end overseas drills.

The biennial exercise, which runs from Sept 11 to 30, is taking place at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. The airspace for the training area is more than 20 times the size of Singapore.

About 1,100 people from the SAF and defence technology community are involved.

As part of the exercise, a new unmanned ground vehicle, as well as drones that can function autonomously are making their debut, alongside 10 F-16 fighter jets, some of which have been upgraded.

For the first time, the A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport aircraft will showcase its automatic air-to-air refuelling capabilities when it comes to extending the endurance of fighter jets.

Other assets involved include 12 of the Republic of Singapore Air Force’s F-15SG fighters, three Heron 1 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), six High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, as well as four AH-64D Apache helicopters.

These are joined by commando lasing and strike observers missions teams, who provide intelligence on targets from the ground.

The exercise has three aims, said the exercise director for air, Brigadier-General Lim Kok Hong, including bringing the SAF’s four services together to “sense-make, decide and direct operations”, which allows them to hash out processes for the force to operate as a singular entity.

The 47-year-old said it also aims to develop smarter warfighting systems, as well as function as a test bed for experimentation.

“Today, conflicts are a lot more uncertain, and it is a lot more challenging to find the targets and prosecute them.

“So we test the end-to-end process to allow people to identify the target, sense-make, quickly pass the information accurately to the shooter so that they can strike the target,” said BG Lim.

“This entire cycle is exercised over and over again with different scenarios so that we make sure we are ready for such uncertainties.”

This year marks the ninth iteration of the exercise since it began in 2005. It also marks the debut of the SAF’s fourth service – the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS), which was formally established in October 2022.

Military Expert 6 Shawn Kan, 38, who is the service’s team lead for Exercise Forging Sabre, said the DIS’ involvement builds upon contributions made by C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) units in previous years, with some key distinctions.

These include adopting open source intelligence to prevent collateral damage, as well as deploying AI and computer vision algorithms to detect targets in the battlefield more quickly.

ME6 Kan, who is also the commanding officer of the SAF’s Air Photo Unit and head of the SAF’s Computer Vision Unit, added that the exercise affords the newest service with the opportunity to understand the operational needs of the other three.

This, in turn, enables the DIS to think of ways to better support them, beyond traditional intelligence gathering.

“I think, in the digital area, there are a lot of synergies between the various services. Being able to build tools and products that can be shared with the various services is key,” said ME6 Kan.

The DIS’ involvement has already shown tangible results about a week into the exercise, said Colonel Anand Sathi Kumar, who is the exercise director for land.

Terrain analysis and target acquisition have been promising, with greater resolution and accuracy provided.

The 44-year-old said that with the fourth service’s inclusion, the SAF is looking to optimise its sense function as well as speed up the decision-making process.

However, despite the positive early results, he said the SAF has not yet reached any definitive conclusions as the exercise is still ongoing.

“We definitely want to venture towards using more smart technology that allows us to do more with less,” he added.