How the Republic of Singapore’s Air Force has redefined airspace management

When the Republic of Singapore Armed Forces (RSAF) embarked on Exercise Wallaby, its largest overseas unilateral exercise, it was a chance to test new technologies in battlefield conditions. To understand the impact, we spoke with Yee Chien Cheot, head of digital plans and strategy at RSAF Agile innovation Digital (RAiD).

In this blog post, we’ll share how RAiD, with the support of Amazon Web Services (AWS), responded to a specific challenge: how to operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) in a crowded, complex airspace.

Rapid response to a tactical challenge

Modern theaters of war are no longer defined solely by conventional engagements, but by asymmetric threats and multi-domain operations, including cyber and information warfare. UAVs are an example of this change. In dense airspaces like Singapore’s, they’re difficult to track and distinguish. With multiple agencies using flying drones, the RSAF needed to manage safe flight paths to prevent collisions and distinguish between friendly and unknown assets in real time.

RAiD unit had nine days to create a solution, Yee Chien explained. The team was embedded with the exercise participants during the autumn 2024 exercise. They could observe action in a live operational context. This enabled rapid prototyping tailored to mission demands.

The urgency required technical proficiency and mindset change. Traditional defense procurement cycles operate over months or years; RAiD worked on daily cycles. This illustrates how agile development and real-time collaboration produce a powerful approach to digital transformation. Developers held daily meetings, wrote code on site, and iterated features based on feedback from operators within hours, not weeks.

The result was the Tactical UAV Command and Control Information System (CCIS)—a cloud-native platform developed to coordinate UAVs. This consolidates real-time data, communication and control into a single digital interface. RAiD’s solution, said Yee Chien, helped the RSAF cut decision-making times from minutes to seconds, and enhanced both safety and operational effectiveness.

Situational awareness delivered at speed

The CCIS provides commanders and operators with a shared, real-time airspace. Color-coded routes for drones, helicopters and restricted airspace allow instant visual recognition. Operators are notified when any asset enter restricted zones and can take immediate action. Commanders can issue basic operating orders directly through the platform, such as instructing a UAV to land, hold, or avoid a sector. This eliminates the need to coordinate through multiple agencies. Everyone sees the same picture at the same time. Visual information reduces cognitive load and improves situational awareness.

The CCIS leverages AWS’s commercial cloud so capacity can scale automatically depending on demand. The system uses serverless architecture so developers can deploy applications to the cloud without managing servers. Containerization and infrastructure-as-code allow quick, reliable update and new feature deployment. Developers can focus on mission-specific functionality rather than system provisioning or maintenance.

Transforming military decision making

The cloud makes future innovation, such as analytics powered by artificial intelligence (AI), deeper integration with autonomous systems and more sophisticated battlefield visualization tools, possible. Innovators such as RAiD can use AWS Skill Builder to develop their capabilities further as cloud technologies evolve.

RAiD’s story is one of technological transformation and strategic adaptation. Embracing cloud infrastructure and embedding developers with operators cuts the gap between problem and solution.

Watch this video for more information on how the RSAF—through RAiD—achieved organic digital capability in a dynamic and uncertain operating environment.