Imperial and Dyson to launch new Robotics Lab

A new centre that collaborates with Dyson will be launching at Imperial in the Department of Computing, this will be the Dyson Robotics Laboratory.

This will be a £5 million collaboration between Imperial and Dyson, which aims to create computer vision programs that allows robots to move beyond controlled environments. It is hoped that the technology will enable robots to process visual data taken by cameras and process it in real time.

The Director of the Dyson centre will be Professor Andrew Davison, from the Department of Computing. He said: “The world could be moving towards a new era where robots for the house and business could be used to make our lives more efficient, cost effective and easier. However, in order to get there we need to develop technologies that free up robots from the factory floor so that they can be used more effectively in our homes. We aim to attract some of the brightest minds to come and work with us at the centre to make this future a reality.”

Sir James Dyson commented that: “My generation believed that the world would be overrun by robots by the year 2014. We have the mechanical and software capabilities, but we still lack understanding – machines that see and think in the way that we do. Mastering this will make our lives easier and lead to previously unthinkable technologies.”