AR Shopping Assistant With Robotic Item Retrieval for Contactless Stores
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Solution Overview
Problem
Shoppers face challenges in navigating and selecting items in physical stores while minimizing contact during pandemics, as existing shopping methods lack mobility assistance and visibility to item quality.
Innovation Solution
A system combining augmented reality (AR) devices and robotic mobility aids, allowing users to authenticate, navigate, identify, and retrieve items via image capture and barcode scanning, while maintaining social distancing and reducing surface contact.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If users shop in-person at physical stores, then they can view and select items directly, but they increase contact with surfaces and items which poses health risks during pandemics
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a robotic mobility device as an intermediary between the user and the store environment. The robot navigates to items, captures images, and retrieves products, allowing the user to shop without directly contacting surfaces or items. The wearable device serves as another intermediary, capturing user gestures and translating them into robot commands, enabling contactless control.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical shopping actions (walking, reaching, touching items) with automated robotic actions. The robotic mobility device uses image capture and barcode scanning technologies to identify items, and automated retrieval mechanisms to collect products, substituting human physical interaction with machine-based operations.
2Reliability
If users use shopping software applications to create lists, then they can shop remotely, but they lack visibility to item quality and cannot verify products
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses image capture to create visual copies of physical items. The wearable device or robotic device captures images of products, allowing users to view item quality, packaging, and condition remotely. This visual copying bridges the gap between remote shopping convenience and physical inspection capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The robotic mobility device acts as an intermediary that physically interacts with items while the user observes remotely. The robot captures images and transmits them to the user's device, providing real-time visual feedback about item quality without requiring the user to physically contact the products.
3Ease of operation
If users manually navigate stores and select items, then they can choose products, but they spend excessive time on navigation and item retrieval
Solution Approach 1:
The robotic mobility device performs self-service navigation and item retrieval based on user commands. The system autonomously locates items using image recognition and barcode scanning, then automatically retrieves and delivers products to the user, eliminating the time-consuming manual processes of walking through stores and searching for items.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements real-time feedback loops where the robotic device continuously captures images, identifies items through barcode scanning, and adjusts its navigation accordingly. This feedback mechanism enables efficient path planning and accurate item retrieval, significantly reducing shopping time compared to manual navigation.
4Ease of operation
If users authenticate and control shopping manually, then they maintain control over selections, but they require complex interaction with multiple devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the wearable device and robotic mobility device into an integrated system. The wearable device captures user gestures and wirelessly transmits commands to the robotic device, which executes actions and provides feedback. This unified system allows users to control shopping with simple gestures rather than manually operating multiple separate devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The robotic mobility device autonomously performs navigation, image capture, barcode scanning, and item retrieval based on high-level user commands. The system interprets simple gestures into complex sequences of actions, reducing the operational burden on users while maintaining full control over shopping selections.
Data Source
AI summary
In an approach to provide contact-less shopping assistance to a user, a computer implements a method for receiving customer authentication data from a user and associating the customer authentication data with a tagged wearable device and a tagged mobility device with the user. The method further includes receiving an indication the user is wearing the tagged mobility device, and that the user is entering a shopping facility using the tagged mobility device. The method further includes receiving a user instruction to capture an image causing the tagged wearable device to capture the image, identifying a bar code in the image, determining an item based on the bar code and transmitting an action instruction to the tagged mobility device to retrieve the item and secure the item. The method further includes receiving an indication that the user has completed the task and delivering the item to the user.