Modeling and characterizing of unmanned aerial vehicles autonomy

How to describe and measure unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) autonomy is of primary importance in the field of autonomous control of UAVs. One of the most challenging obstacles lies in the reasonable description framework of UAV autonomy. In this paper, the existing typical classification models of autonomous control levels are presented and compared firstly. With the construction of task-level model and decision-process model of UAV autonomous control system, a novel classification framework based on the two models is proposed. Under this framework, task-level model should reflect UAV autonomy as perceived by an external observer, while decision-process model considers more internal decision-making aspects. According to the description framework, a detailed autonomous control levels with two dimensions is proposed. Finally, some future directions and difficulties of the issue about evaluating UAV autonomy are also addressed.