On July 28, 2026, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued Announcement DA 26-786, officially adding foreign-made power inverters and foreign-made advanced robotic equipment to the FCC's "Covered List." Devices listed will be prohibited from obtaining FCC device authorization and cannot be legally sold or deployed in the U.S. market.  

Advanced robotic devices are defined as mechanical mobile devices, including autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, and quadruped robots, all of which simultaneously meet all of the following conditions:

• Ability to move, avoid obstacles, navigate, or move on land;
• Based on command or response sensor data, operate at a certain distance from human operators or supervisors;
The
• combined weight of equipment and ground stations or base stations (if applicable) exceeds 4.4 pounds
• Each of the following types of components includes: sensors capable of sensing their environment; Components capable of providing network connectivity (wired or wireless, including Bluetooth/Wi-Fi, cellular, or satellite) with a connection speed of at least 200 kbps in either direction; Software running locally or remotely (including firmware and AI/machine learning model weights) is used to control autonomous navigation/motion perception, data collection, or remote command and control of robots.

This definition does not include: "connected vehicles," vehicles operating only on railways, drones or unmanned aerial systems, unmanned underwater vehicles, items classified as devices under § 513 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, including surgical instruments, medical/surgical robotic systems, external limb prostheses and components, walking/mobility aids (such as canes, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs), etc.; Fixed, stationary, non-mobile robots, including articulated, parallel/delta, Cartesian/gantry, or SCARA robots designed for industrial or medical use.

A power inverter refers to equipment that simultaneously meets the following conditions:

• Bidirectional power equipment or systems that convert DC to AC, or AC to DC, including: microinverters, string inverters, centralized inverters, and hybrid (battery-based) inverters;
• Includes components that enable remote communication, control, sensing, data collection, or monitoring via Wi-Fi, cellular networks, Bluetooth, or other similar connection methods.

Click this link to view the full text of FCC DA 26-786 Announcement.