SINGAPORE - Officers from the Home Team may be trained with artificial intelligence (AI) avatars in simulation exercises by 2025.
The AI avatars were featured during the Home Team Academy (HTA) Workplan Seminar 2024 held at the academy’s premises in Old Choa Chu Kang Road on April 23, as part of HTA’s Home Team Simulation System (HTS2).
The system, which has trained more than 7,000 Home Team officers since its launch in 2018, uses virtual reality to train officers’ situational awareness and sense-making, having them make strategic decisions in various simulated scenarios.
Currently, the system uses fellow officers as role players, often requiring instructors to fill in as simulated victims or witnesses while conducting assessments.
The AI avatars will reduce the need for such players, freeing up instructors to focus on guiding trainees and evaluating their soft skills.
HTA has been working on AI avatars for about six months and has developed two of them so far as a proof of concept to train officers in handling a snatch theft incident.
The avatars are able to respond to different questions and decisions made by the trainees, and also adapt to the Home Team’s context and training requirements, said HTA.
It added that the next generation of HTS2 is currently in development, and will use advanced technologies such as extended reality and capture data on performance, response times and decision-making.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Gilbert Chen, assistant director for capability development at HTA’s Centre for Home Team Simulation, said the AI avatars are critical for developing HTS2.
He said: “At HTA, we are dedicated to ongoing innovation and research to explore the feasibility of developing human-like conversational AI avatars. This is pivotal to provide valuable feedback for HTA’s continuous improvement ahead of the official launch of the next generation HTS2.”
Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling, who officiated the event, said HTA plays a critical role in driving training and learning in the Home Team.
She said: “For the Home Team to prepare for the challenges ahead, we must continually support our officers’ learning needs and invest heavily in their training while balancing work commitments. To help officers upskill and reskill, HTA must continually be on the lookout for new learning approaches, new technologies, updated methodologies, and apply them in our training and learning context.”
Other exhibits at the seminar included a Snakes and Ladders game used to train Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officers in leadership, and an Accuracy and Impact Manikin prototype being trialled by the Singapore Prison Service in collaboration with the Home Team Science and Technology Agency.
The prototype can measure force and impact, and assess the accuracy of baton strikes. Singapore Prison Service intends to roll out the system by 2026.
Mr Anwar Abdullah, chief executive of HTA, said it is committed to elevating its quality of training and learning initiatives.
He said: “Effective training and learning is vital to navigating today’s poly-crisis world where we face multifaceted challenges. HTA will continue to spearhead training innovations, including using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality.”
