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Dyson seeks 700 robotics engineers for £2.75bn expansion

26 May, 2022

Dyson, the domestic appliances giant, says it wants to recruit 700 robotics engineers over the next five years as it expands its newly-revealed robotics division, which already includes 250 robotics experts working across disciplines such as computer vision, machine learning, sensors and mechatronics. Following ten years of secretive work on robots, Dyson is now revealing and accelerating its development of autonomous devices capable of household chores and other tasks.

The company says it is half-way through the largest engineering recruitment drive in its history with half of the 2,000 people who have joined it this year being engineers, scientists, and coders.

Dyson plans to create the UK's largest, most advanced, robotics centre at Hullavington Airfield in Wiltshire, and to be offering robotic technologies for use in homes by the end of the decade. Another technology it is working on is “wearables”.

The company is also establishing a new laboratory close to the Dyson Robotics Lab that it has sponsored at Imperial College in London for the past ten years, as well as another one at its global headquarters in Singapore. Over the past six months, Dyson has been secretly refitting one of the main hangars at Hullavington which will be the new home to 250 roboticists. This is latest stage in a £2.75bn plan to invest in new technologies, products and facilities, £600m of which will be spent this year.

“Dyson employed its first roboticist 20 years ago and this year alone we are seeking 250 more experts for our team,” says Dyson’s chief engineer, Jake Dyson, who is the son of the company’s founder, Sir James Dyson. “This is a ‘big bet’ on future robotic technology that will drive research across the whole of Dyson, in areas including mechanical engineering, vision systems, machine learning and energy storage. We need the very best people in the world to come and join us now.”

Dyson is working on a variety of robotic technologies for domestic applications

As part of its expansion drive, Dyson has revealed elements of its robotics vision at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Philadelphia, US. The company has also released a video which gives clues to some of its latest developments, such as robotic hands that can grasp objects.

Until recently, Dyson’s main interest in autonomous systems has been its floor-based vacuum cleaners, the first of which, the DC06, was designed 20 years ago. Jake Dyson now states that robots and wearables are the company’s future.

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