Starting with teaching two or three unmanned vehicles to work together, they are scaling up their work on artificial intelligence (AI) software to send a large group of robots towards the enemy.

Dr How Khee Yin, 44, head of the Centre for Decision Support at DSO, envisions the day when dozens of robots could be sent into harm's way 'in a swarm'.

He said: 'We're learning from bees and ants. How they work as a team. It's very much a growing area of research.'

By replacing soldiers with robots, these machines could save lives when sent on risky missions like gathering intelligence or destroying enemy forces with smart munitions.

'In the past, people have focused on single robots,' he said. But as communication technology improves, robots can be made to work together as a network.

'This presents the problem of how to develop AI software to get them to coordinate among themselves.

'This may seem simple but human beings are also not so good at coordinating themselves sometimes.'

Professor Lim Hock
Once a weatherman, Professor Lim Hock, 55, never imagined his early work in meteorology would lead him to defence R&D work more than 20 years later.

But the two fields are not that unrelated.

He said: 'Meteorology is certainly an important environmental factor. Whatever big ship you have, whatever power you have is nothing compared with the fury of nature. If you do not work with it, you could be overwhelmed.

'So in effect I think for any operation...if you know the weather and you have a good capability in weather, you always have an advantage.'

Today, he works on giving Singapore an advantage of another kind.

As director of Temasek Laboratories at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Prof Lim and his team of 80 work on basic aspects of military technology like flight control and antenna design, which are vital in building a strong foundation for more complex defence science projects.

Such work is also important as it frees defence scientists at places like DSO for more ambitious work.

He said: 'In recent years, R&D requirements have gone up very much. Even with the manpower in DSO, it finds it difficult to put enough people to look ahead on basic issues for future requirements.

'Temasek Labs then takes on the complementary part of the work. We look at basic studies. We can try less certain ideas which may or may not work.'

Chemical Verification Lab, DSO
A tightly guarded lab on Marina Hill, near Kent Ridge, is one of 15 places in the world approved by an international body to test for the presence of chemical agents or other nasty compounds.

DSO's Chemical Verification Laboratory earned this status in March this year.

It was designated as a verification lab by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international body made up of countries seeking to eliminate the use of chemical weapons.

To attain this, the team had to correctly identify mystery chemicals that could be among 300,000 possible chemicals.

Ms Sng Mui Tiang, 35, head of the chem-bio detection and verification programme, said: 'The designation is not forever. You need to participate in verification tests at least once a year to maintain that designation.

'If you do not do well, you will be out of the game. You will actually be suspended.'

Now, the DSO lab is being tasked to prepare similar samples to test the capabilities of more than 20 labs worldwide.

At home, Ms Sng's team will be on the front line in an emergency.

She said: 'We have no doubt that if an chemical incident occurs in Singapore, it will come to our laboratory for verification.'

Source: Singapore Press Holdings

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