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.

民用无人机在功能上变得越来越独立于人类的参与，这使它们走上了通往“自主”状态的道路。在定义“自主性”时，欧盟（EU）法规以及其他司法管辖区采用了“全有或全无”的方法，根据该方法，无人机要么能够完全自主运行，要么根本不能自主运行。这种二分法忽视了无人机自主性的各个级别，并且未能捕捉到民用无人机操作的复杂性。在欧盟内部，这会产生监管影响，例如监管滞后、阻碍更好的安全监管以及与欧盟人工智能 (AI) 监管方法不一致。本文认为，将自主性理解为一个频谱，而不是以二分法的方式，将与无人机的技术功能更加一致，并且可以避免当前二分法引起的潜在监管问题。在描述这种光谱方法时，本文 (1) 分析了无人机操作中自主性的表现，(2) 描述了技术文献和无人机标准化中为概念化“自主性”所做的努力，以及 (3) 探讨了其他三个方面对自主性的定义尝试。技术：自动驾驶汽车、自主武器系统和自主海船。