CAAS and SUTD to Establish Aviation Studies Institute in Singapore

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to establish an Aviation Studies Institute (ASI) to advance air traffic management (ATM) research and development (R&D) in Singapore.

The ASI, to be located within SUTD’s campus, will be the fourth facility dedicated to ATM R&D established in Singapore and the first to focus on operational, economic and policy research.

The ASI will conduct research in the following four areas: Network Capacity, Airfield Management and Economics, Airport Connectivity, and Information Sharing and Collaborative Decision Making.

Over the next five years, CAAS will provide S$11.6 million to fund the aviation and ATM policy research undertaken by the ASI, as well as aviation experts for research projects, while SUTD will provide in-kind contributions of S$5 million, including research manpower and facilities.

Mr Kevin Shum, Director General, CAAS, said, “The ASI is a key element of CAAS’ larger effort to develop Singapore as a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for ATM and facilitate the development of safer and more efficient air travel. It will expand the scope of ATM R&D in Singapore to generate insights for improving and transforming our operating models.”

An ASI Governing Council (GC) will be established to provide strategic directions and steer the R&D efforts of the ASI. The GC will be co-chaired by Mr Kevin Shum and Professor Chong Tow Chong, with members from both CAAS and SUTD. Professor Peter Jackson, Head of the Engineering Systems and Design Pillar at SUTD, will be the first Director of the ASI, and he will report directly to the GC. He will lead the ASI’s management team as well as professors and researchers overseeing the R&D projects undertaken by the Institute.

Professor Chong Tow Chong, SUTD President, said, “The ASI represents a major step forward in one of the four major thrusts of SUTD’s strategic growth plan. We see Aviation, Healthcare and Cities as three critical domain challenges facing Singapore with the technology of Artificial Intelligence undergirding future advances in all three. All four thrusts build on SUTD’s bold advocacy for design innovation. The partnership with CAAS reinforces this vision as the ASI will not only tackle practical problems in the Aviation policy domain but also approach them from a system design perspective and leverage the computational tools of data analytics, optimisation and reinforcement learning.”

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