Scientists at the University of Birmingham have developed a robot, which can help in stacking a dishwasher. The makers of robot claimed at the British Science Festival that the robot will be ready to load dishwasher next year.

According to developers, the robot, Boris, is able to intelligently manipulate unfamiliar objects with a humanlike grasp. The developers are also working on Bob, an independent robot that has recently worked with security company G4S.

Professor Jeremy Wyatt of the School of Computer Science announced the first public outing of the Boris robot. According to Professor Wyatt, it took five years and a cost of £350,000 to develop the robot.

Depth sensors on Boris' wrists and face help it to see the object. It takes about 10 seconds to determine possible ways to grasp a novel object with its five fingers and decides the path to reach the object.

According to Professor Wyatt, the robot has been programmed to learn how to pick an object and not to pick it.

Research engineer Maxine Adjigble, who has helped to develop the robot, said, "He sees something, he has been trained to grasp an object in a particular way, and he says - okay this surface looks similar to what I know, so I can go for this grasp".

Professor Wyatt and his team are hoping to get the robot to load dishwasher by April 2015. Wyatt said that from a set of objects, the robot will choose one it wants to pick up, determine where to put it in the dishwasher and then will load it.

According to Professor Wyatt, dishwashing is a typical task that requires all the manipulative faculties. By making a robot that can help in stacking the dishwasher, developers hope to make the robots more flexible in future.