New FCC legislation against foreign-made advanced robotic devices may have inadvertently introduced a ban on non-U.S. robot vacuums from being imported into the United States, according to The Verge. The FCC has added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices and connected power inverters to its Covered List, blocking new models from the equipment authorization they need before they can be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States.
The four-part test buried in the underlying national security determination catches any ground-traveling robot heavier than 4.4 pounds, including its dock, provided it carries an environmental sensor and a network link running at 200 kb/s or faster, and it names "AI or machine-learning model weights" as covered software. The determination, attached as Appendix C to the FCC's public notice, applies to a mechanical mobile device capable of locomotion, obstacle avoidance, navigation, or movement on the ground that operates at a distance from a human operator.
