Uniform terminology for unmanned aerial vehicles: their concept and legal regulation

The field of legal regulation for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) lacks a unified terminology, and the prevailing trend is either to replace the term “unmanned aerial vehicle” or to abandon it altogether. In the absence of a specific law exclusively governing UAVs, the current legal framework contains a number of gaps and contradictions that complicate law enforcement. Specifically, there is no clear definition of the concept “unmanned aerial vehicle” and criteria distinguishing it from other types of aircraft. Furthermore, establishment of a legal regime for UAVs is impossible without developing a stable, precise set of terms for regulating relations associated with the use of unmanned vehicles. The purpose of this study is to conduct a scientific and legal analysis of existing terminology concerning unmanned aerial vehicles and to formulate a general concept of UAVs that could be consistently implemented into the legislation of the Russian Federation. The paper, firstly, reviews scientific and theoretical approaches to defining the concept of UAVs, where this category is understood as airplanes, artificial mobile objects, and aircraft. Secondly, a regulatory legal analysis of the UAV concept allowed concluding that the domestic legislator uses terms like UAV and UAS (unmanned aircraft system) as equivalent in some cases, while in others, UAV is understood as a broader category, including aircraft and other aerial vehicles. The authors believe that the term UAV should be applied correctly only to the field of aircraft. Thirdly, a definition of a UAV is formulated as a vehicle supported in the atmosphere by interaction with air, controlled and managed in flight either automatically or remotely by an external pilot.