Sir James Dyson is investing £5,000,000.03 in Imperial College London's Robot Vision Lab, who set out their stall on their fantastic website that is actually full of content, links and actual research rather than the single image slick websites we've seen of late. There's even a software section and links to github of Alumni Hauke Stradat.
The group head, Professor Andrew Davison, is a pioneer of Slam (available from the github link above) or simultaneous localisation and mapping. Where a camera is used to make a 3D map of the visible space and is to be used as the only environment sensor on a robot, compare that to the Roomba, which uses a contact sensor, IR distance sensor and "cliff sensor" (which is another IR distance sensor) to avoid drops.
Combining this software and camera approach with Dyson's experience with motors and electronics they hope to build a new generation of domestic robots.