Regulating Autonomy in Civilian Drones: Towards a Spectral Approach

Civilian drones are becoming more functionally independent from human involvement which sets them on a path towards “autonomous” status. When defining “autonomy,” the European Union (EU) regulations, among other jurisdictions, employ an all-or-nothing approach, according to which a drone is either able to operate fully autonomously or not at all. This dichotomous approach disregards the various levels of drone autonomy and fails to capture the complexity of civilian drone operation. Within the EU, this has regulatory implications, such as regulatory lag, hindrance in better safety regulation, and incoherence with the Union’s regulatory approach towards Artificial Intelligence (AI). This article argues that understanding autonomy as a spectrum, rather than in a dichotomous way, would be more coherent with the technical functioning of drone and would avoid potential regulatory problems caused by the current dichotomous approach. In delineating this spectral approach, this article (1) analyses manifestations of autonomy in drone operations, (2) delineates efforts in the technical literatures and drone standardization to conceptualize “autonomy”, and (3) explores definitional attempts for autonomy made in three other technologies: self-driving cars, autonomous weapon systems, and autonomous maritime ships.