Sustainability Hub

Built Environment

With limited land and a densely populated urban environment, Singapore has embraced built environment innovation and sustainable practices across construction, infrastructure, and urban design. Guided by the ambitious targets of the Singapore Green Plan 2030, Singapore is leveraging a wide range of innovations to address key environmental challenges. From energy-efficient building systems to smart infrastructure and sustainable construction materials, these technologies aim to reduce carbon emissions, optimise resource use, and improve climate resilience.

Enterprises can explore co-developing innovative products and services by tapping on IPI’s curated list of technologies for sustainability in the built environment, unlocking new opportunities in this evolving sector. This ensures that Singapore’s urban areas remain vibrant, sustainable, and adaptable to future environmental challenges, positioning the city-state as a leader in global green urbanisation efforts. By fostering sustainability in the built environment, Singapore is setting a global benchmark for how cities can thrive through the use of cutting-edge innovation and eco-friendly practices.

Efficient LoRa WAN protocol for mission critical IoT applications

An improvised LoRaWAN has been developed to enhance data transmission efficiency between LoRa trackers and LoRaWAN gateways addressing the prevalent issue of mid-air data loss due to collisions. This improved protocol enhances the data transmission rate from its current range of 10-30% to 65%. This substantial improvement leads to power savings for IoT end nodes, particularly those powered by batteries, by eliminating the need for data re-transmission. Moreover, the improved protocol also significantly increases gateway capacity, thereby reducing the capital expenditure associated with IT infrastructure.

Wireless Fiber Optic Sensing For Structural Health Monitoring

Wireless monitoring solutions are gaining traction worldwide due to their added benefits of continuous monitoring capability 24/7. An innovative technology has been devised that has a way of converting variations in the reflected wavelength from fiber grating based sensors into intensity variations that can be easily processed through the electronic circuits and transmitted wirelessly. Conventional fiber grating based sensors measure the wavelength shift of the reflected light to determine the mechanical strain experienced by the medium in which the grating is embedded. This is conventionally done through a Fabre Perot interferometer which is referred to as the Interrogator but is a costly solution. The innovative circuitry eliminates the need of the costly, and typically more bulky interferometer, replacing them with cost effective and compact fiber components configured in such a way that converts mechanical strain into intensity changes.

Intelligent Communities Lifecycle (ICL) Digital Twin Suite

With a focus on built environment, the digital twin technology developed by a Singapore SME offers a suite of tools to model, analyse and continually optimise entire groups of buildings, portfolios, communities, cities and resource networks across their lifecycle, providing a truly scalable solution to decarbonise the built environment. Bridging the gap between the real world and simulation, the digital twin enables the energy efficient design and continuous operational optimisation of not just single but entire groups of buildings. The digital twin solution investigates operational problems using AI and machine learning, engaging the community feedback in real time. It improves operational decisions by understanding where to focus attention on and facilitate decision making by the building operators. The technology owner is seeking partnerships with large building portfolio owner, product developer, IoT solutions provider who can deploy the digital twin solution for their clients.