Dyson has announced a planned investment of £5 million in an Imperial College London robotics lab.

Dyson has maintained a relationship with the lab since 2005 but the planned investment will be the first time the lab has received funding of this scale.

The vacuum cleaner technology company has created past prototype robotic cleaning devices in the past, with competitor companies having since launched robotic vacuum cleaners such as the Roomba.

Sir James 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”.

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