If stacking the dishwasher is a chore you dread, help may soon be at hand. British scientists have developed a robot which they are training to complete that very task. The robot - which they have named Boris - is the first to have enough intelligence to work out how to grip any single item put in front of it. Scroll down for video . A Birmingham University project has created a robot that can grab plates and cups. It can work out how to pick up different objects placed in front of it. Called 'Boris' (shown) it is controlled by three separate computers . While that is sufficient for most factory production, creating a robot which can pick up and manipulate any single item hugely increases its potential use for industry, surgery, or in the home. The development marks a huge step forward in robotics. Until now robots could only pick up items of a fixed size, placed in a fixed location. Boris - who was publicly unveiled at the British Science Festival in Birmingham today - is controlled by three different computers and has cost £350,000 ($570,000) to build. Professor Jeremy Wyatt, the Birmingham University computing expert who led the project, said loading a dishwasher was his main goal. ‘The scenario that we've got is to get the robot to load a dishwasher,’ he said. ‘That's not because I think that dishwasher-loading robots are an economic, social necessity right now. It's because it encapsulates an incredibly hard range of general manipulation tasks. ‘Once you can crack that, once you can manipulate an object that you've never seen before, you can do a whole bunch of different things. ‘Loading a dishwasher is a really hard task.’ The Boris robot has been created by British scientists . Boris has thick multi-jointed arms that enable it to pick up objects. The robot can learn various grips and costs £350,000 ($570,000) to build . Boris the robot's hands can learn the dexterity needed to pick up objects of different shapes and sizes . Boris performed in public for the first time in front of a festival audience yesterday. Safely confined to a basement laboratory, he reached out with a thick multi-jointed aluminium arm and picked up a measuring jug followed by a dustpan before depositing them in a tray. Significantly, Boris has been programmed to figure out different ways to handle each object, by curling round his fingers to use the whole hand, using the palm of the hand in a power-grip, or adopting a more delicate pinch-grip to grasp an edge. Boris is able to learn the different grips and adapt them to other unfamiliar objects without breaking or dropping them. ‘You've got all the freedom of having all these fingers, so now your brain has got to work really hard,’ said Prof Wyatt. ‘The robot comes up with about 1,000 different grasps in its head in about 10 seconds.’ Boris performed in public for the first time in front of a festival audience yesterday . Boris has been programmed to figure out different ways to handle each object, by curling round his fingers to use the whole hand, using the palm of the hand in a power-grip, or adopting a more delicate pinch-grip . He added: ‘It is fairly commonplace to programme robots to pick up particular objects and move them around - factory production lines are a good example of this. But when those objects vary in size or shape, robots tend to get clumsy. ‘The system we have developed allows the robot to assess the object and generate hundreds of different grasp options. That means the robot is able to make choices about the best grasp for the object it has been told to pick up, and it doesn't have to be re-trained each time the object changes.’ This could have major applications in industry. The project, called Pacman, has been carried out in collaboration with the universities of Pisa in Italy and Innsbruck in Austria, and is funded by the European Commission. The team has already patented the technology, and is working with a firm in Coventry to develop a version of Boris that co-operates with humans on the factory floor. Boris is able to learn the different grips and adapt them to other unfamiliar objects without breaking them . Professor Jeremy Wyatt, the Birmingham University computing expert who led the project, said loading a dishwasher was his main goal . ‘It might be five or 10 years in the future, but you're going to have robots working with humans, and that means they're going to have to cope with all the uncertainty that humans introduce into the environment,’ he said. ‘One of the really big problems on robot assembly lines is if you want to change the part shapes. At the moment, when the world changes, the whole system breaks down. You want to be able to change the parts on short runs very, very quickly.’ A lot more work is needed before a new generation of Boris robots is sent into the real world. The next big step for the scientists is to get Boris to use both his arms and transfer objects from one hand to another. ‘Being bi-manual is a real advantage for all sorts of purposes,’ said Prof Wyatt, who hopes to see the robot stacking plates by next April.
Birmingham University project creates robot that can grab plates and cups .
It can work out how to pick up different objects placed in front of it .
Called 'Boris' it is controlled by three separate computers .
It has thick multi-jointed arms that enable it to pick up objects .
The robot can learn various grips and costs £350,000 ($570,000) to build .
If stacking the dishwasher is a chore you dread, help may soon be at hand. British scientists have developed a robot which they are training to complete that very task. The robot - which they have named Boris - is the first to have enough intelligence to work out how to grip any single item put in front of it. Scroll down for video . A Birmingham University project has created a robot that can grab plates and cups. It can work out how to pick up different objects placed in front of it. Called 'Boris' (shown) it is controlled by three separate computers . While that is sufficient for most factory production, creating a robot which can pick up and manipulate any single item hugely increases its potential use for industry, surgery, or in the home. The development marks a huge step forward in robotics. Until now robots could only pick up items of a fixed size, placed in a fixed location. Boris - who was publicly unveiled at the British Science Festival in Birmingham today - is controlled by three different computers and has cost £350,000 ($570,000) to build. Professor Jeremy Wyatt, the Birmingham University computing expert who led the project, said loading a dishwasher was his main goal. ‘The scenario that we've got is to get the robot to load a dishwasher,’ he said. ‘That's not because I think that dishwasher-loading robots are an economic, social necessity right now. It's because it encapsulates an incredibly hard range of general manipulation tasks. ‘Once you can crack that, once you can manipulate an object that you've never seen before, you can do a whole bunch of different things. ‘Loading a dishwasher is a really hard task.’ The Boris robot has been created by British scientists . Boris has thick multi-jointed arms that enable it to pick up objects. The robot can learn various grips and costs £350,000 ($570,000) to build . Boris the robot's hands can learn the dexterity needed to pick up objects of different shapes and sizes . Boris performed in public for the first time in front of a festival audience yesterday. Safely confined to a basement laboratory, he reached out with a thick multi-jointed aluminium arm and picked up a measuring jug followed by a dustpan before depositing them in a tray. Significantly, Boris has been programmed to figure out different ways to handle each object, by curling round his fingers to use the whole hand, using the palm of the hand in a power-grip, or adopting a more delicate pinch-grip to grasp an edge. Boris is able to learn the different grips and adapt them to other unfamiliar objects without breaking or dropping them. ‘You've got all the freedom of having all these fingers, so now your brain has got to work really hard,’ said Prof Wyatt. ‘The robot comes up with about 1,000 different grasps in its head in about 10 seconds.’ Boris performed in public for the first time in front of a festival audience yesterday . Boris has been programmed to figure out different ways to handle each object, by curling round his fingers to use the whole hand, using the palm of the hand in a power-grip, or adopting a more delicate pinch-grip . He added: ‘It is fairly commonplace to programme robots to pick up particular objects and move them around - factory production lines are a good example of this. But when those objects vary in size or shape, robots tend to get clumsy. ‘The system we have developed allows the robot to assess the object and generate hundreds of different grasp options. That means the robot is able to make choices about the best grasp for the object it has been told to pick up, and it doesn't have to be re-trained each time the object changes.’ This could have major applications in industry. The project, called Pacman, has been carried out in collaboration with the universities of Pisa in Italy and Innsbruck in Austria, and is funded by the European Commission. The team has already patented the technology, and is working with a firm in Coventry to develop a version of Boris that co-operates with humans on the factory floor. Boris is able to learn the different grips and adapt them to other unfamiliar objects without breaking them . Professor Jeremy Wyatt, the Birmingham University computing expert who led the project, said loading a dishwasher was his main goal . ‘It might be five or 10 years in the future, but you're going to have robots working with humans, and that means they're going to have to cope with all the uncertainty that humans introduce into the environment,’ he said. ‘One of the really big problems on robot assembly lines is if you want to change the part shapes. At the moment, when the world changes, the whole system breaks down. You want to be able to change the parts on short runs very, very quickly.’ A lot more work is needed before a new generation of Boris robots is sent into the real world. The next big step for the scientists is to get Boris to use both his arms and transfer objects from one hand to another. ‘Being bi-manual is a real advantage for all sorts of purposes,’ said Prof Wyatt, who hopes to see the robot stacking plates by next April.
A Birmingham University project has created a robot that can grab plates and cups. It can work out how to pick up different objects placed in front of it. Called 'Boris' (shown) it is controlled by three separate computers . While multi-jointed arms that enable it to pick up objects. The robot can learn various grips and costs £350,000 ($570,000) to build . Boris the