Canon plans to incorporate its lens and image processing technology in a fleet of new robots over the next five years.

?We?ll integrate Canon?s basic lens, image-processing technology and semiconductor technologies,? said Canon chairman Fujio Mitarai in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

‘In the initial phase, these technologies will be used at many of our factories, and later we?ll use them to produce and market industrial robots, starting no later than 2015.?

Canon, which currently deploys robots on industrial assembly lines, may sell the robots to the medical and nursing care markets.