The iRobot Corporation, creator of the autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner Roomba, is designing a similar cleaning device that functions as a self-guided lawn mower.
According to the waiver filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the company is developing a Robotic Lawn Mower (RLM) that will no longer rely on the current technology of edge wires buried around the lawn. Instead, it will utilize a series of small wireless beacons for a convenient and precise lawn location information.
In February, iRobot filed a request for waiver with the FCC seeking authorization to use a segment of the radio spectrum to assist in the RLM's directions. The RLM's setup requires the placement of outdoor portable beacons during the mowing season.
The beacons will communicate with the RLM, helping it plot the lawn area and stay within the selected boundaries. A typical lawn of about 10,000 square feet may require four to nine beacons, which should be removed at the end of the mowing season to prevent battery drain and safeguard the beacons from damage due to environmental factors.
However, the system requires special permission from the FCC due to its restrictions on fixed outdoor infrastructure, as it may be possible for owners to create ad hoc networks of transmitters, which could interfere with existing authorized services like GPS and cellular systems.
iRobot wrote that the RLM should be exempt because, by design, the RLM portable beacons cannot establish a wide-area communications network, and unique addressing will prohibit the transmitters from conversing with other devices outside the owner's property.
The frequency band recommended for the RLM is in the range of 6,240 to 6,740 MHz, which is equivalent to the range that several radio telescopes of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) work on for spectral line observations.
Astronomers wanted the FCC to turn down iRobot's proposal so that their telescopes would not be interrupted in detecting methanol out in space. Methanol is produced by star-forming activity and its presence in space can be used to measure the distance to star-forming regions with high precision, charting the course of galactic evolution.
The NRAO operates radio telescopes in a few states and Chile. The NRAO said that iRobot's RLM cleaning lawns could disrupt its radio telescopes in Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and West Virginia.
It is ultimately up to the FCC to decide whether iRobot will be authorized to use that radio spectrum or transfer to a different range.
Photo: Justin Dolske | Flickr
