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RSAF Aerospace Technology Seminar 2025

  • 02 May 2025
  • Text by: Jarell Lim, SUTD Aviation Interest Group

Every two years, the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) organises the Aerospace Technology Seminar (ATS), an event that provides a platform for the aerospace industry to share its engineering insights and breakthroughs to fellow engineers, researchers and students. This year’s theme “Aerospace 2030: Navigating the Next Decade of Aerospace”, saw participating companies such as Airbus, Pratt and Whitney and ST Engineering.

The day began early in the morning at the Auditorium with an opening address by Deputy Head Air Engineering and Logistics (Airworthiness Engineering), Reuben Lim, highlighting the importance of innovation and digitisation of the RSAF amidst a time of global instability. The first keynote presentation was on QualiFly, a digital initiative developed within the RSAF. Presented by ME6 Lawrence Tan, the application is used to improve an Air Force Engineer’s (AFE) training performance by supporting self-directed learning and enabling superiors to monitor each engineer’s progress, ensuring no one falls behind. It’s a refreshing initiative, especially given the common perception among younger generations that the military can be old-fashioned or outdated. This marks a positive step in ensuring that the RSAF stays current with trends and technologies, while also providing engineers with more effective tools.

For the rest of the morning session, keynote presentations were delivered by speakers from ST Engineering, Airbus Defence & Space and Pratt & Whitney. Dr Zhang Yongjie of ST Engineering highlighted the recent tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, noting that aircraft components will only get more expensive and scarcer due to them. He then emphasised the need for local manufacturing capabilities to be able to identify and produce high-risk spare parts for the RSAF’s fleet, no matter the global climate.

One of the exhibiting booths by ELH Tech outside the auditorium has demonstrated this concept very well. End-of-life (EOL) parts are known to be very scarce and hard to find, which makes it very difficult if AFEs need that part for their aircraft urgently. The ELH tech provides a solution for this problem with a handheld device that can scan and create digital models of the EOL part that AFEs need. Once the digital model is created, the AFE can send it directly to the 3D printer to produce the EOL part, eliminating the need to source it from suppliers around the world. It is a novel concept and will certainly provide the RSAF a reliable way to acquire aircraft components urgently.

ELH Tech Booth for EOL parts. Photo: Jarell Lim

During his speech, Mr Antonio, Head of the Air-to-Air Refuelling Boom System Engineering team at Airbus Defence & Space, gave insights to how they are using flight data analytics to enable key innovations in the Boom Automatic Refuelling system of the A330 MRTT aircraft, a recent addition to the RSAF’s fleet. Dr Ashwin Raghavan, head of the Additive Manufacturing Integrated Product Management Team at Pratt & Whitney, also delivered a keynote showcasing how RTX is tackling industry challenges through scalable additive manufacturing solutions.

In the afternoon, guests gathered in the foyer for a networking lunch and explored various display booths featuring many innovative technologies, before participating in breakout sessions hosted by engineers and researchers from diverse fields in aviation.  A*STAR’s Institute of Infocom Research (I2R) department featured a mobile robot with the capability to inspect the underbelly of the RSAF’s fighter jets, while the RSAF’s engineering team featured a maintenance scheduler named PRISM and JFS Diagnostic Kit for the F15SG fighter jets.

A*STAR I2R Robot. Photo: Jarell Lim
JFS Diagnostic Kit. Photo: Jarell Lim

The most interesting booth, which was also presented at a breakout session, was ST Engineering’s anti-spoofing and anti-jamming antenna. Guided missiles receive signals from GPS satellites in a similar way your phone does for Google Maps. However, these signals are highly susceptible to jamming and spoofing. Hence, ST Engineering has developed a pancake-shaped antenna that eliminates these interferences by utilising the Earth’s gravitational field to provide location data instead. With this added antenna, guided missiles will be able to strike their targets with greater accuracy and efficiency. This innovation was particularly fascinating to me for two reasons: first, I have never thought that the Earth’s gravitational field could be used in such an application, and second, one of the RSAF engineers expressed a keen interest in the technology, raising many interesting concerns, such as the daily fluctuations in the Earth’s gravitational field, and how the engineers at ST Engineering plan to resolve such an issue.

ST Engineering’s Anti-jamming and Anti-Spoofing Antenna. Photo: Jarell Lim

Overall, I enjoyed ATS 2025 greatly this year, it was a great opportunity to truly understand the many innovative solutions that the RSAF endorses. The RSAF can be quite secretive and confidential in its engineering field, this means that students are unlikely to know what to expect for a career as an air force engineer. Therefore, the ATS 2025 was a valuable opportunity for students like myself to gain insight into the current trends and technologies the RSAF is exploring. It was also inspiring to learn from the many innovative solutions showcased at the event. I look forward to attending the next ATS and am especially eager to see even more innovative solutions that will incorporate AI.

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