One of the heroes of modern British engineering design, James Dyson is to establish a new £5 million robotics centre at Imperial College in South Kensington, London.  The inventor who revolutionised the vacuum cleaner now wants to do the same with a new generation of helpful android robots who will be able to vacuum, clean windows and guard property.  This follows on from earlier attempts to create a robotic vacuum cleaner which Dyson stopped at the time because the sensor equipment was too complicated and the robot was too heavy and expensive. The research at Imperial College, to be led by Professor Andrew Davidson, will concentrate on vision systems that can help robots understand and respond to the world around them.

Dyson said: “My generation believed the world would be overrun by robots by the year 2014. We now have the mechanical and electronic capabilities, but robots still lack understanding – seeing and thinking in the way we do.  Mastering this will make our lives easier and lead to previously unthinkable technologies.”

Dyson believes that the technology can be used to develop products for the home and the test will be for consumers to buy them at affordable prices. He is not alone – researchers at Waseda University have already unveiled the Twendy-One robot that can obey voice commands, cook and provide nursing care and Google has recently been buying up robotic-related companies including robotics company Schaft and military manufacturer Boston Dynamics.

There are already robots in use who can clean windows, which are especially useful at high and inaccessible locations, but they still need an element of human control. Dyson believes that it should be possible for greater intelligence so that the robot will know when the job is finished.