Dynamic Maritime Airspace Management: The Philosophy for an AI Environment

Indian territorial space is commonly perceived to be extending over 3,287,263 sq. km. This statistic often overlooks the maritime jurisdiction over 2,013,410 sq. km. of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and approximately 1.2 million sq. km. of Extended Continental Shelf filed on 11 May 2009. This maritime space of 3.2 million sq. km. nearly doubles the associated air space management expanse. Classical airspace management in military operations enhances combat effectiveness by encouraging the safe, efficient, and flexible use of airspace with minimal restrictions on friendly airspace users. It also entails coordinating, integrating, and managing airspace to maximise efficacy at all levels of conflict. Maritime airspace management, further looks at preventive approaches to ensure all users of the airspace refrain from interfering with one another. Additionally, it needs to simplify air defence identification, and accommodate the safe passage of all air traffic. Roles and duties affecting this system are approaching increasing complexity and require a judicious mix of technology and computational options. The use of 4D maritime space in surface, sub-surface, aerospace and cyber-domain, increases the applicability of AI to naval operations. The Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) is also conceived to answer this requirement to foster maritime safety and security collaboration, given the region’s significance in international trade and security.

This article will look into the evolution of conventional airspace management at sea and the usage of AI in maritime airspace management from the manmachine interface of detection, identification, designation and action.