Let's face it, we've always had aspirations of owning a robot butler or household Android that will handle our menial day to day chores. And anyone born during before the 90s would have at least once thought that we'd have one by now - it's 2015 for blinking flip's sake.

Sadly, our exact image of what a robot assistant might be like may still be a long way off. However, Robotbase has devised the Personal Robot that has some of the characteristics we'd like to see.

Currently undergoing funding on Kickstarter, having so far reached over half of its goal of $50,000, the Personal Robot is described as a "photographer, security guard, storyteller and much more".

It has a degree of artificial intelligence with facial recognition. It can also recognise emotions and household objects and travels around on a motorised pedestal that looks a bit like a converted robot vacuum cleaner.

Like the cleaner, it builds a 3D map of the surrounding environment to get about and an oval screen at the top displays a computerised face than can speak to you. And as it's a part of the Internet of Things, the Personal Robot can talk to other connected devices around your home, such as a coffee maker or your lighting.

The security guard aspect of the robot's talents means that it can transmit video feeds from every room in the house, giving piece of mind. That's about it really as we can hardly see it trying to chase off a burglar. Slowly.

That said, it's one of the closest things we've seen to a decent attempt at realising one of the science fiction technologies of our dreams. And at present $995 (£657) will get you your own automated assistant as a super early bird backer for delivery at the end of this year, which is fairly cheap for a slice of the future now we come to think of it.