Dyson has unveiled a robot vacuum cleaner, the 360 Eye, which navigates using a 360-degree vision system and can be programmed using an iPhone or Android smartphone.

Most existing robot vacuum cleaners rely on bumpers, which prevent them from bumping into walls and furniture by reversing or changing their path accordingly. Some newer models also have forward-looking infrared sensors to detect obstacles.

However, the Dyson 360 Eye vacuum has a 360-degree vision system that allows it to 'see' its environment and build a detailed floor plan to systematically navigate around a room and track its position.

Infrared sensors work in conjunction with a lens on the top of the machine that houses a 360-degree panoramic camera. The camera can see all around the room at once so the machine can accurately triangulate its position.

It then uses landmarks within the images to establish how it has moved between each frame and update its model of the environment accordingly.

"When you or I go into a room, there are waypoints that we see that help us vacuum clean the room ? like the corner of a table we don?t want to bump our heads into, or the edge of the sofa that we don?t want to run against," said James Dyson, founder of Dyson.

"But we don?t know what we?ve done ? we can only guess at that ? and we don?t know how far we are from objects, and we don?t have a plan of the room. Our robot knows exactly where it is in the room, it makes a plan of the room, and it knows exactly where it?s been.

"We have a vision of great things in the future from this system, and we believe a huge amount of automation will be a matter of interpreting what you see."

Dyson said that the ability for a robot vacuum cleaner to know where it has been is particularly important, because repeatedly going over the same spot wastes valuable battery power.

Unlike other robot vacuum cleaners, which rely on rotating sweepers to clear dirt, the Dyson 360 Eye uses a brush bar and a digital motor, meaning it consumes energy faster but has better suction and picks up more dirt.

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The carbon fibre brush bar extends to the full width of the machine, meaning that it doesn?t rely on side sweepers to reach the edges of the room. It also has stiff nylon bristles to agitate and clean carpets.

"There is no point in a robot that doesn?t clean properly, and we think that the others don?t clean properly because they haven?t got strong suction. They may say they have long battery life, but in the process they?re not cleaning very well," said Dyson.

"The reason we?re relatively slow into the market is that we wanted the digital motor to give us strong suction power and we wanted very very intelligent navigation so that we didn?t waste the battery power."

Dyson built and demonstrated its first a robot vacuum cleaner, known as the DC06, in 2001, but due to its high price and complex design, it was never released as a commercial product. Since then, other robotic cleaners like the Roomba have stolen a march on Dyson.

However, while most of these employ wheels to get around, the 360 Eye ? which is the result of 16 years of research and development and and ?28 million of investment ? has continuous tank tracks, allowing it to maintain speed and direction across all floor types, and over small obstacles, without slipping.

This does not allow it to go up or down stairs ? the vision system is able to detect steep drops and ensure it doesn't fall down them ? but Dyson is not ruling out robots that are able to navigate different levels in the future.



The battery in the 360 Eye lasts about 20 minutes on a single charge. However, the robot is able to retain a plan of the room, so when it gets low on battery it will return to its charging station, charge for two hours, and then pick up where it left off.

Its 360-degree vision system also allows it to recognise open doors, so after finishing vacuuming one room it will go through the open door and start cleaning the next one.

Users can check on the progress of their cleaning even if they are out of the house, using a Dyson-developed app for iOS and Android. They can also use the app to schedule the machine or set up a recurrent cleaning schedule.

"If your girlfriend suddenly said she was coming round for dinner you could tell it to get on with the cleaning fast, or you could surprise your wife by cleaning the whole house, while still earning your keep at work," said Dyson.

The Dyson 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner will go on sale first in Japan in spring 2015, with the rest of the world to follow later in the year. It is expected to cost around ?700 in the UK.

The news coincides with the launch of Samsung's Powerbot VR9000 robot vacuum cleaner, which claims to have up to 60 times greater suction than conventional cleaners and an enlarged drum brush ? removing the need for side brushes.

Samsung said that its CycloneForce technology generates a strong centrifugal force that circulates dust particles through the inner chamber and sieveds the dirt and debris into the outer chamber. As a result, the Powerbot VR9000 keeps the filter clean and lessens clogging over a longer period of time.