ROBNEWS
In an FCC proposal that would expand the Covered List of restricted foreign drone equipment by capability, DJI argues LiDAR, thermal cameras, sprayers, and docking stations would be swept in with battlefield hardware.
The Federal Communications Commission wants to decide whether a drone is "military-grade" by looking at what hardware is bolted to its frame. That capability-based test, proposed in PS Docket 26-189 on July 21, 2026, has drawn a formal objection from DJI: the company's official response argues that the same test will sweep in farm sprayers, fire-department thermal rigs, infrastructure-inspection platforms, and even LiDAR-equipped hobbyist quads, because civilian drones now carry many of the same components the agency wants to reserve for the battlefield.
The mechanism at issue is the FCC's "Covered List", a running roster of foreign-made communications equipment whose import, sale, and marketing the agency can restrict on national-security grounds. The list already covers gear from a handful of Chinese vendors, including drones and drone components. PS Docket 26-189 proposes to expand that list by defining a new class of "covered UAS equipment" and a new "military-grade" trigger. The agency's fact sheet frames the action as closing a supply-chain loophole: a drone that can drop aerosol "economic poison" under FAA rules, integrate LiDAR, carry thermal imaging, dock autonomously, or weigh 55 pounds or more would, by the draft language, fall inside the rule.
The proposal's public-comment text leaves the final definition of those trigger categories open. That is the structural reason DJI's formal response lands as a definitional challenge rather than a market-access complaint. The company argues the capability test confuses what a drone can do with what its operator does with it. LiDAR, in DJI's reading, is a positioning and obstacle-avoidance feature used in commercial inspection and search-and-rescue work; thermal imaging is a public-safety tool; agricultural spraying is a regulated civilian activity under FAA Part 137; and autonomous docking stations are now a routine feature in long-range enterprise fleets. Pull each of those capabilities into the same bucket, the company says, and the rule stops tracking military hardware.
DJI also names the product lines it believes are in scope: FlyCart delivery drones, agricultural sprayers, enterprise platforms, and Dock docking stations. The company adds that it does not design, manufacture, market, or sell military-grade equipment and has consistently opposed weaponizing its civilian aircraft. None of that, on its own, changes the regulatory question. The FCC is not asserting that DJI builds military hardware; the agency is asking whether the capability set on the airframe should determine authorization, regardless of who built it or what the operator intends.
That is the line the FCC has not yet drawn. Capability-based rules are an established tool in dual-use supply-chain regulation: they let an agency act on the hardware itself without waiting to catch a specific prohibited end use. The agency's stated national-security rationale, that a drone capable of carrying military-relevant sensors and payloads cannot be re-imported or re-marketed in the United States without review, is a real argument. Trade-press coverage of the original FCC action and the July 30 follow-up on agricultural sprayers make the same point: the rule is being written to catch dual-use risk, not a specific vendor.
DJI's filing, surfaced by DroneLife on August 10, is the first major counter-positioning to put the capability-versus-intended-use distinction on the record. It is also, by structure, a market-access argument: the company is asking the FCC to narrow the trigger categories so that civilian platforms with overlapping component lists can stay on the U.S. market. Both readings are true at once. The rule the agency finalizes will determine which one carries the day, and the docket is the place that gets decided.
The public-comment window is open now. The next question is whether the FCC's final definition treats LiDAR, thermal imaging, agricultural aerosols, and docking stations as military-grade capabilities by default, or only when paired with another trigger. That is the line the agency has not yet drawn, and the one DJI's filing is asking it to move.