ROYAL AIR FORCE
universities and with startups to accelerate that process and to get to the front of the queue with regards to technology rather than being a late adopter .”
“ PEOPLE TALK ABOUT DIGITAL
BASES , THEY TALK ABOUT SMART CITIES , BUT TO DO THAT YOU NEED A DIGITAL BACKBONE ”
BLYTHE CRAWFORD OBE GROUP CAPTAIN , ROYAL AIR FORCE
One of the areas RAFX is focused on is the digitalisation of processes and practices right across the Station . At Leeming , these can be experimented with before scaling across the rest of the Service .
“ People talk about digital bases , they talk about smart cities , but to do that you need a digital backbone and what we ' ve tried to do here is to make ourselves a lot more connected ,” says Crawford . “ We have business internet across the entire station . We ' ve also recently installed are our own private 5G network to create an Internet of Things platform and backbone that covers the entirety of the station , which allows me to connect anything to anything else right across the site .”
Crawford also explains how the digital backbone can help RAF Leeming meet its ambitious carbon net-zero by 2025 target by creating a digital twin of the base , brimming with smart sensors on energy management systems and waste systems to create a single dashboard .
“ My Nirvana , for example , is where I could put on a set of augmented reality goggles , look at a 3D augmented picture of the station and – taking the data that we gather
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