Breaking Ground with SAFTI City

28 Jun 2019

DSTA is leading the development of SAFTI City, which is being developed in collaboration with the Army to meet the evolving defence needs of the SAF.

Scheduled to open progressively from 2023, SAFTI City will provide a realistic urban environment for soldiers to train for homeland security and urban operations by replicating Singapore’s highly urbanised streetscapes.

At the groundbreaking ceremony on 28 June 2019, Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen highlighted the importance of SAFTI City as “the face of the likely battlefield for a new generation of Singaporeans has changed” and the odds that the SAF being called into operations in built-up areas, whether it is for peacekeeping operations, humanitarian assistance disaster relief or other types of operations, have gone up.

He added: “The SAFTI City that we are building will bring us to a new level and this facility, SAFTI City… will provide SAF soldiers with the most advanced training facilities globally. It will prepare them to conduct a wide range of operations that include homeland security, counter-terrorism, and disaster relief operations as well as conventional operations in all types of terrain."

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When developing the facility, DSTA engineers from National Engineering Programme Centre (PC) and Building and Infrastructure PC collaborated with stakeholders from the SAF to understand their training needs better.

To deliver a more targeted and accurate performance feedback for individuals and teams, the engineers integrated various training systems and leveraged data analytics. For example, they incorporated advanced training and simulation technologies such as instrumentation, smart targetry with shoot-back capabilities, and battlefield effects simulation into SAFTI City’s design to enhance training effectiveness and the soldiers’ training experience.

To ensure that the urban features present varied and challenging scenarios for soldiers to train for a wide range of operations, the engineers mooted the concept of using swing panels to configure the street landscape for different training needs. In addition, they proposed the use of false facades to augment real buildings to replicate a dense urban environment.

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Source: MINDEF

Senior Programme Manager Programme Office (National Engineering) Eng Huiling, who is leading the DSTA team behind SAFTI City, added: “The SAFTI City groundbreaking ceremony is a significant project milestone for the team. However, this is only the beginning of a long-term development for the next-generation Army training. My team and I look forward to seeing the operationalisation of the first phase of development in the coming years!”

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