Dyson To Invest £5m In Robotic Vision Laboratory

Dyson is a name familiar to consumers as the company has been known recently for their bladeless fans as well as vacuum cleaners, and now it looks like the company could be considering given the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner a run for its money as they have recently announced that they have invested £5 million into a robotic vision laboratory. The lab will be based at the Imperial College in London, with the College’s Professor, Andrew Davison, who will lead the work on developing new robotic vision systems.

Speaking to the BBC, Sir James Dyson was quoted as saying, “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.” This is not the first time that the Dyson company has had interest in robots. Back in 2001, the company developed a robotic vacuum cleaner that almost made it to production, but was cancelled at the last minute due to it being heavy and expensive.

It is unclear as to what sort of commercial products might result from this investment, but given Dyson’s take on fans and vacuum cleaners, we are definitely interested to see what will be the result of this.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General, Robots
Tags: dyson