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According to IEEE Spectrum a proposed robot lawnmower from iRobot (developers of the Roomba) has astronomers concerned about the proposed design.
In order to provide the robot lawnmower with information about position iRobot are proposing to use wireless beacons in the 6240-6740 MHz range, which covers a region of the radio spectrum the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) uses for observations, and iRobot would like the FCC to allow them to operate in this protected spectrum by issuing a waiver:
As you might expect, the NRAO got a little bit upset that iRobot wanted to set up its beacons to broadcast on a protected frequency, because they're worried that people's lawn mower beacons would start to mess with their radio astronomy data. So, they’ve filed a comment to that effect on iRobot's FCC waiver application, to which iRobot responded, and then NRAO responded to that.
We’ve read through these documents (including iRobot’s waiver application, NRAO’s comments, iRobot’s response, and NRAO’s reply), and they’re full of amusingly passive-aggressive commentary from both sides as they argue back and forth in front of the FCC.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday April 11 2015, @12:33AM
Agreed. They knew the frequency was reserved when they started their development, but they went ahead any way expecting to bull their way through it..
There is already precedent for denying this use. (I forget the name, some company wanting to use space-to-ground wifi broadcasting on an already designated radio band.)
Incidentally, there are some cars, (including the one I drive) that have Adaptive Cruise Control that uses astronomy frequencies that are extremely line of sight (25ghz as I recall). If you get near a radio astronomy installation using those frequencies the car sounds an alarm, puts a message on the console, and turns off adaptive cruise control. Its something like a 50 or 100 mile radius. I had this occur exactly once, in Southern California, but I have no clue what I was near at the time. An hour later it was back.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 11 2015, @01:52AM
Yeah, I think this a problem that can be solved be clever engineers with non-important parts of the spectrum. Especially using existing frequency range patches (ISM).
So they want to geolocate. One can always exploit time of flight or phase differentials, even using 2.4 GHz or so.