Microreactor concepts have seen increasing interest in recent years given their potential use for meeting energy needs in remote and grid-isolated communities. Because of the small power outputs of microreactors and the potential for remote siting, there is a need to significantly reduce operational staffing levels to improve their economic viability. Autonomous control capabilities emerge as a key enabling technology. Autonomous control should not be perceived as a single feature that when added delivers certain functions. On the contrary, autonomous control capability is a highly complex systems engineering process that requires detailed understanding of system dynamic response as a function of operational actions. These advanced capabilities can be achieved at different levels of autonomy, which would then require different levels of human operator involvement in operational decision making. The division of functions and responsibilities between the human operator and the automatic system is the starting point in the system engineering life cycle process. Once this division of functions and responsibilities is established, several options exist for autonomous control ranging from simple automation of some procedures to fully autonomous operational mode with automatic decision-making and execution without the involvement of a human operator. A critical aspect of autonomous decision-making is the ability to have as complete an awareness of the system state as possible. In addition to monitoring the conventional process data, such as temperatures, pressures, flow, and neutron flux, measurements pertaining to the condition of important components become as important as the operational data. This type of information will allow the autonomous control system to adapt its internal configuration to changing conditions of structures, systems and components of importance through the decision-making process. The key capability is to execute these advanced functions with minimal operational disturbance and, of course, without compromising the public health and safety. Several technical and regulatory advances are needed before widespread use of autonomous control in microreactors. These include sensor and instrumentation technologies that are capable of long-term unattended operation in harsh environments, technologies for inferring the state of the microreactor system or subsystems with confidence, algorithms for predictive decision-making that account for the assessed condition of the microreactor subsystems as well as the potential impact on those components of any operational decisions, and actuators and control system hardware that are resilient in harsh environments. In addition, given the need to remotely monitor the operations, cybersecurity requirements will likely need to be imposed to ensure secure operations.