IRobot’s robotic lawn mower gets US regulatory approval

It has been quite sometimes, when we first heard about the automated lawn mower, which was made by the creators of Roomba iRobot Corp.

The iRobot lawn mower required a wavier from the FCC to ensure its communications with its signal beacons wouldn’t interfere with other devices. iRobot, which grew out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has sold more than 10 million robots. This needs to be cleared to make sure transmissions between the iRobot machines and antennas wouldn’t interfere with other devices on the same frequencies.

The day is coming when instead of having to mow the lawn yourself, a robot will do it for you. The beacons operate in the 6240-6740 megahertz range, the same range the National Radio Astronomy Observatory uses to view the spectral signature of methanol in space.

The company designed a robotic lawn mower that would operate outdoors and connect wirelessly to stakes in the ground with transmitters attached, also called beacons, that would guide the robot on the ground in a designated area to trim the grass, according to a document about the ruling released by the FCC. According to Reuters, iRobot says the waiver will let it “continue exploring the viability of wideband, alongside other technologies, as part of a long-term product exploration effort in the lawn mowing category”. Its automated lawn mower would likely not use a large single blade in the center, but rather a number of smaller blades. It was already mentioned as early as nine years ago in a Forbes.com article. The decision means iRobot can move forward with its new bots without fear of FCC fines. As of now, there are no exact amounts to how much the new lawn mower would costs.