• Olga V. Lukinova, Institute of Control Sciences RAS (Moscow, Russia)

The article provides an overview of some issues related to the technical devices’ autonomy subject domain in its current state. Today, this concept does not have a clear methodological or formalized definition, which, in the context of the transition to digital technologies, seems to be a significant problem when designing devices with artificial intelligence elements and a given degree of autonomy. Various approaches to understanding the term "autonomy" are described, emphasizing that autonomy should be viewed as a further development of a technical device’s automation properties, along with its automatism and adaptability. The concepts of "strong autonomy" and "weak autonomy," used by some foreign experts and related to the automation properties of a technical system, are discussed. Foreign and domestic sources containing various criteria for assessing the level of autonomy are presented. It is shown that the evaluation indicators are purely expert and informal in nature and do not relate to the essential quality of the autonomy of a technical device, but to the result of its functioning. Thus, when deciding on the assessment of the device autonomy level, decision-making algorithms in unstructured areas should be used, based on the convolution of a vector criterion, which is hierarchical in nature. Thus, the purpose of this work is to show, by analyzing numerous sources, the limitations of the scientific and methodological apparatus for assessing such a complex concept as device autonomy, which today is based solely on the subjective judgments of the observer, as well as the need to move to formal or at least formalized methods.

automation, autonomy, technical system, assessment of autonomy level

2026-03-05