The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is proud to announce that the Smart Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Enhanced (SUAVE) project has been chosen by IDC (International Data Corporation) Government Insights as the best Asia Pacific Smart City project under the “Urban Planning and Land Use” category of IDC’s 2020 Smart City Asia Pacific Awards (SCAPA).

SUAVE is a machine learning algorithm that analyses images captured by drones to automatically identify building defects requiring maintenance. Together with the “SmartLAMD” app that was developed by SLA, SUAVE helps to maintain and improve building conditions through the early identification of potential maintenance issues, from cracks and debris to water ponding and even plant growth, thus enabling the speedy handling of these minor issues.

At the same time, SUAVE provides tremendous time and cost savings. Officers now use only 12.5% of the original conventional inspection time to review and address potential maintenance issues. Given the early detection of defects, repairing and resolving the maintenance issues in advance will also save up to 80% more time, since minor defects can be fixed significantly faster compared to major defects.

Aside from saving time, SUAVE has also significantly reduced inspection and repair costs. Deploying drones for building inspection only uses 60% of the cost required for a conventional physical inspection that uses boom lifts. Roof and property repair costs are also estimated to have been reduced by 40% since early detection of potential maintenance issues by the SUAVE system also means a reduction in the frequency of costly major defects in the properties under SLA’s care.

Now into its sixth year, the annual SCAPA recognises outstanding Smart City initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region through a rigorous six-stage benchmarking framework called IDC Smart City Development Index, and covers 14 Smart City functional eServices in categories such as Civic Engagement, Digital Equity and Accessibility, Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure and Urban Planning and Land Use.

SUAVE represents yet another milestone in SLA’s digital transformation journey, and is testament to SLA’s efforts to drive digitisation and digitalisation in its work processes. Congratulations once again to the Systems and Support/Land Management team!