Robot autonomy is the degree to which a robotic system can perceive its environment, make decisions, and execute tasks to achieve goals without ongoing human direction. It spans a spectrum from teleoperation, through supervised autonomy where a human approves key decisions, to full autonomy where the robot plans and acts independently within its operating envelope. Autonomy level is typically determined by the sophistication of a robot’s perception, planning, and task-execution stack working together under uncertainty.

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