
Coming to Terms: “Levels of Autonomy” is Unsound
- 21 Dec 2020 09:26 AM
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Autonomy, among the hottest topics in aviation today, lacks a clear and agreed-upon definition, though a consensus is emerging.
Multiple aviation “level of autonomy” scales have been put forward, such as Autonomy Levels for Unmanned Systems (ALFUS) by US government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). But the adjective “autonomous” is binary: either an actor (person or system) performs a task autonomously or it has supervision.