Augmented Reality Vending Interface for Remote Product Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional vending machines require users to be physically present for selection, payment, and product retrieval, posing an inconvenience for some users, and existing solutions do not provide a cost-effective, intelligent, and accessible alternative.
Innovation Solution
A system that includes a mobile communications and computing platform for displaying vending machine products in augmented or virtual reality, allowing users to navigate and select products remotely, with options for payment and delivery via physical or virtual means, including drone delivery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If conventional vending machines are used, then product dispensing function is provided, but user accessibility and convenience are limited due to requirement of physical presence
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a mobile computing platform as an intermediary between the user and the vending machine. This mediator enables remote interaction through augmented reality interfaces, allowing users to view products, make selections, and complete transactions without physical presence at the machine, thereby improving accessibility while managing system complexity through modular architecture
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical interaction (physical presence, manual selection, cash insertion) with electronic and optical systems. Users interact through mobile devices with cameras, displays, and processors that substitute for mechanical components, enabling remote operation and reducing the need for complex mechanical dispensing mechanisms while improving ease of operation
2Ease of operation
If augmented reality interface is implemented, then user convenience and accessibility are improved, but device complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent leverages the mobile computing platform's existing multi-functional capabilities (camera, display, processor, communication interfaces) to implement augmented reality functionality. By reusing these universal components for multiple purposes (product display, user authentication, payment processing), the system achieves enhanced user convenience without proportionally increasing complexity or cost
Solution Approach 2:
The augmented reality interface enables users to independently complete the entire purchasing process remotely - viewing products, making selections, authorizing payments, and receiving confirmation - without requiring machine operators or additional service personnel. This self-service capability improves convenience while keeping operational complexity manageable
Data Source
AI summary
A first system for maintaining an inventory of goods available for purchase and providing images relating thereto; a second system for wirelessly communicating the images to a mobile communications and computing platform; a third system operationally coupled the mobile communications and computing platform for displaying on the mobile platform at least one of the images of one of the goods on the platform in response to a user's navigation; and a fourth system for effecting a purchase transaction with respect to at least one of the goods correlated with the displayed image. In the augmented reality embodiment, navigation is effected by physically moving the mobile platform relative to the inventive vending machine whereby the products displayed, and the views thereof, change and vary as a function of the relative position of the mobile platform and the vending machine. As an alternative, the physical vending machine is replaced with a virtual vending machine adapted to display the goods on the user's mobile platform in a three-dimensional space.