Federal agencies · DA 26-1146 / ET Docket No. 26-256 · Agency waiver

FCC grants Intel a one-year waiver for factory AGVs

One-year waiver grantedRecorded action: October 22, 2026

An AIUT automated guided vehicle with red emergency-stop buttons beside an ABB robot arm in a factory. — Related factory automation: an AIUT AGV beside an ABB arm, photographed in 2019. This is not Intel’s facility or the equipment covered by its waiver. Image: Marta Veverica / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 4096 × 2734 · Downsampled where needed to 4K or larger and WebP optimized; smaller card preview. No upscaling.

What happened

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology granted Intel a one-year waiver of sections 2.932 and 2.1043 of the Commission's rules for the automated guided vehicles identified in the company's petition.

What the waiver permits

The order permits Intel to make specified hardware, software, and firmware changes to certain automated guided vehicles used inside its U.S. semiconductor-manufacturing facilities. The FCC said the limited relief is intended to avoid potential disruption to domestic semiconductor-manufacturing services.

This is a company- and equipment-specific waiver, not a repeal of the FCC's restrictions on covered foreign-produced advanced robotic devices or a general exemption for industrial robots. It applies only to the vehicles and modifications identified in Intel's filing and expires one year after the order's release.

Verified October 27, 2026. This is a RobotMe summary of the official record; it is not legal advice.