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posted by martyb on Friday April 10 2015, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the get-off-my-lawn! dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:40AM

    by captain normal (2205) on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:40AM (#168896)

    "...mowing your lawn is required by law."
    Not in California these days. You are not allowed to water your lawn, what with the drought.

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