MAID IN BRITAIN
Dyson unveils the robotic household helpers developed in this country that it hopes will make it a leader in the field
REMEMBER when our vision of the future was a world full of flying cars and friendly humanoid robots?
Sadly, that technological utopia has not yet arrived. And neither, thankfully, has the bit when the robots rise and take control of everything.
Although, if Dyson has its way, the good bit of that future vision could come sooner rather than later.
This week, the fancy vacuum maker revealed its hitherto-secret plans to put robotics right at the heart of its business.
So far, 10 years of work have gone into the project.
The big reveal from Dyson was made at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Philadelphia by Dyson’s Chief Engineer Jake
Dyson, son of the company’s founder James. And there was good reason for that location – Dyson’s plans are of such enormous scale that they need to attract and employ another 700 specialist robotics engineers.
They’re already halfway through a recruitment drive that will eventually bring 2,000 new members of staff to the company, and while they’d rather keep their plans secret, they’ve had to reveal some details in a bid to attract the brightest and best to the project.
The whole robotic set-up is spread across four sites – three in the UK and one in Singapore, where Dyson has its global HQ.
The biggest UK base is at Hullavington Airfield in Wiltshire, where two giant hangars are home to a pair of divisions that Dyson is betting its future on. One is focused on wearables – that’s where the headphonescum-facemask the company revealed earlier this year came from.
The other warehouse is where the robots are taking shape.
In a video presentation to the conference, Dyson gave a somewhat limited guided tour of the facility that gave a glimpse into what kind of work goes on there.
We saw a robot picking up children’s toys from the floor and tidying them away into a box. There was a robot hand lifting crockery from a drying rack, and a large, complicated-looking device that turned out to be a vacuum cleaner that could tackle a living room chair.
The device, Dyson says, can accurately map the chair in 3D to make sure it reaches every nook and cranny.
Beyond that, there was much technical talk about how work was ongoing to marry the various technologies required – from both software to hardware – together into useful devices.
And by useful, it does seem they’re more focused on housework than anything more earthshattering.
These are not the first robots Dyson has worked on, of course. It’s been selling a robot vacuum cleaner for almost 20 years.
And one of the drawbacks to all robot vacuums on the market today is that they can’t make it up stairs.
Tackling this issue might well be high on the agenda for the team at Hullavington – a set of stairs are seen in the video in the robotics test area.
How long might it be before we see any of these robots on the market? There’s no clue yet, but Jake Dyson says the company is looking at this project “though a ten-year lens, and beyond”.
You can take a look at Dyson’s video about the robot project at dyson.co.uk
It does seem they’re more focused on housework than anything more earthshattering...