Ati Robotics' Sherpa Mecha humanoid cleared for US sale after national security review
The FCC clearance makes Sherpa Mecha one of only two humanoids allowed on the US market, and the only one built for factory work.
Ati Robotics' Sherpa Mecha industrial humanoid has been cleared for continued sale in the United States after a national security review, the company announced on November 6. The US Department of War granted conditional approval exempting Sherpa Mecha, the Sherpa 10K tugger and Sherpa FlexFork autonomous forklifts from the Federal Communications Commission's Covered List. The FCC published the approval on October 30 under the company's US legal name, ATI Motors, Inc.
As of October 30, Sherpa Mecha is one of only two humanoid robots cleared from the list, and the only one built for factory work. The other is Matic's home robot, the first to win an exemption in early October. The clearance covers five Ati platforms in total: Sherpa Mecha, the Sherpa 10K and Sherpa 3K tuggers, and the Sherpa FlexFork 1500 and 3000. All five remain eligible for the FCC equipment authorization required for distribution in the United States.
Sherpa Mecha is a dual-arm mobile manipulator that navigates the plant floor, retrieves bins and handles parts in a single continuous workflow. The Sherpa 10K moves up to 10,000 pounds of material between production lines, docks and warehouses, while the FlexFork forklifts move pallets and carts without a driver. All three platforms run through Ati Flow, the company's software for orchestrating material movement across a factory.
The clearance matters because the bar for selling foreign-built robots in the US rose sharply this year. Since July 28, foreign-produced advanced robotic devices have sat on the Covered List unless cleared through a national security review, pushing manufacturers and distributors to scrutinize where their automation is built, who owns the software and who supports it. Ati builds its own autonomous and fleet-management software, and its robots have completed more than 2 million autonomous missions across more than 70 factories, with a 99 percent mission success rate, the company said.
Ati, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, said it had already been working on plans to build its robots in the US and took a larger site in Michigan earlier this year. The company said the FCC action reinforces its view that autonomous robots are strategic technology that enterprises must treat as such.