The Japanese firm has been working on the HSR, Human Support Robot, which is the robot equivalent of their Corolla cars, and is simply a retractable arm, complete with a screen at the top and two eyes to give it resemblance of a human.

The robot is able to carry out simple tasks such as organising books on a shelf, tidying a room and placing a pair of slippers in the right direction for a human to step into them, as seen in a recent demo.

Though Toyota don't want to say when their autonomous assistant could become a common fixture in elderly homes and hospitals, Masanori Sugiyama, a former manager in the robot program, predicts it could happen in the new few years.

However, for more complex tasks, such as interacting with human emotion, the wait could be a lot longer.

According to Bloomberg, Masanori said: "They need to be able to understand what people are thinking and have empathy. The idea is for the robot to be a friend."