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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According to National Geographic the sources of mysterious radio signals which have been puzzling astronomers for years have been discovered. According to a study by Emily Petroff, the signals, called Perytons, turn out to be from microwave ovens:
But almost since the beginning, one thing has been clear about perytons: Despite mimicking a deep space signal, they're produced by a source that's somewhere near Earth. Astronomers knew this because perytons simultaneously show up in multiple viewing fields rather than arriving from a single point.
In this respect, perytons are very much unlike their cousins called fast radio bursts, highly energetic signals that truly appear to be coming from very, very far away and have no known origin.
Petroff and her colleagues discovered the source of perytons after they installed a real-time radio interference monitor at the Parkes telescope. In January, the telescope detected three of the signals – and the interference monitor picked up three simultaneous interference signatures. The team recognized the interloping frequencies as possibly belonging to a microwave oven.
[...] As one might expect from a cosmological signal, fast radio bursts tend to show up rather randomly around the clock. But, perhaps unsurprisingly in retrospect, the peryton data show those signals "clustering near the lunchtime hour."
The study in question is available at arXiv.org, and according to the summary:
Subsequent tests revealed that a peryton can be generated at 1.4 GHz when a microwave oven door is opened prematurely and the telescope is at an appropriate relative angle. Radio emission escaping from microwave ovens during the magnetron shut-down phase neatly explain all of the observed properties of the peryton signals.
Spotted at Scientific American's Physics Week In Review.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @11:36PM
It would be a shame if you had to pay a fine for not mowing it. That's right, mowing your lawn is required by law. You can't afford to take chances with your lawn, like having a bunch of egghead astronomers messing up your mowing robot with radio waves.
Mandatory mowing ordinance : 1
Radio astronomy observatory : 0
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 11 2015, @02:44AM
When I lived in Truro, Nova Scotia I did not own a lawn mower. I was real busy with my work and just never got around to hiring someone else to mow it.
Eventually I received a notice that if I didn't mow my lawn, the Town of Truro would mow it for me then send me a bill. I hired someone to do it after that.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @03:43AM
Yes it is required, usually by local ordinance. Also, don't explain the joke.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:40AM
"...mowing your lawn is required by law."
Not in California these days. You are not allowed to water your lawn, what with the drought.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Saturday April 11 2015, @12:20AM
The answer is simple: Fuck iRobot, seriously
There are other ways to solve this and other frequencies. It's just like those TLDs, got to have one more to cash in. And thus FCC declining this permission would not hurt any poor people or lawn mowing..
(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.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:56AM
Also agree. Even though iRobot claims low level transmissions, the levels that Radio Astronomy operates at are so low that the slightest little blip would mess up months of data collection.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @01:28AM
This will make me NEVER buy a irobot product.
I Love Science
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @01:54AM
Until iRobot sells you the iCocksucker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @02:56AM
Ima Coxuker.
It was worth getting someone else ( not in the class ) to handwrite a homework to pass in under that name. Hilarity would often ensue when the graded homework was returned. Usually best done with the first homework assignment of the semester. Never own up to doing it , though!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cwadge on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:05AM
In other words, astronomers have a hard enough job as it is without additional interference from this planet. Personally, instead of eating up more of the wireless spectrum with ultimately superfluous stuff like iRobot, I'd like to see us get more creative and efficient with the spectrum we have already licensed. The way we're using it now hasn't progressed much since Tesla's day.
(Score: 1) by cwadge on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:13AM
In case you were confused, I meant "infinitely", not "infinitesimally". Whoops. ;)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:44AM
Yeah, hyperboles are hard to get right. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:54PM
Hyperbole is impossibly difficult to get right.
(Score: 1) by cwadge on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:16PM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @08:06AM
srsly? nothing and i mean NOTHING daily-practical has come from astronomy. complete waste of time and tax-payer monies.
it's freaking pull-thru university to finish line with a cushy job in some "observatory" for the rest of your life .. and sit around doing nothing.
REAL astronomy is a satellite in orbit (or on the moon) but surely NOT on earth .. 5 billion potential interference sources and counting!
but i guess having to do a education to be a astronaut too is asking too much.
comfy chair and and infinite coffee machine refills in remote location is what they're after.
*evil grin*