Open Self-Service Vending via Customer Positioning and Weight Sensing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional agricultural trade markets and supermarkets face increased labor costs and customer queuing due to the need for manual weighing and queuing for product pricing, while unmanned supermarkets struggle with accurate behavior recognition and high computing loads during peak times.
Innovation Solution
An open self-service sales method and system that automatically calculates product quantities using unique storage subareas with automatic weighing units, real-time customer positioning, and machine vision technology to simplify shopping, reduce queuing time, and lower costs, enabling accurate and efficient transactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual weighing and pricing is performed in traditional markets and supermarkets, then product pricing accuracy is ensured, but labor costs increase and customer queuing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables customers to shop autonomously by automatically weighing products on smart racks and recognizing customer behavior through positioning, eliminating the need for manual weighing and pricing operations while maintaining accuracy
Solution Approach 2:
Manual mechanical weighing operations are replaced with automatic weighing units integrated into smart racks, and manual pricing operations are replaced with automated pricing systems that use positioning and image recognition technology
2Extent of automation
If QR codes or RF labels are attached on items in advance for pricing in unmanned supermarkets, then automated pricing is achieved, but delivery workload and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
Product information including pricing is pre-loaded into the automatic weighing units and positioning system before customers arrive, eliminating the need for staff to attach QR codes or RF labels to items during delivery
Solution Approach 2:
The system automatically identifies products and applies pricing through the weighing units and positioning recognition without requiring manual attachment of identification tags, reducing delivery workload
3Extent of automation
If machine-vision based recognition is used in unmanned supermarkets, then automated behavior recognition is achieved, but computing load increases during peak traffic
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses positioning technology to identify customer locations and behavior patterns locally at specific points in the store rather than requiring comprehensive machine vision analysis of the entire store area, reducing computing requirements
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of using comprehensive machine vision to track all customer movements, the system uses selective positioning recognition to identify key customer behaviors at critical locations, achieving sufficient automation with lower computing load
4Productivity
If automatic weighing units are placed at bottom of storage subareas, then product quantity calculation is automated, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The automatic weighing units are integrated with the storage rack structure itself, combining the weighing function with the existing storage infrastructure rather than adding separate complex weighing systems
Solution Approach 2:
The smart rack structure serves multiple functions including storage, automatic weighing, and positioning recognition, reducing the need for separate dedicated devices and simplifying the overall system
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This solution simplifies the shopping process, reduces labor costs, and ensures accurate product counting and payment processing, even in high-traffic scenarios, by automatically identifying customer behaviors and calculating product quantities in real-time, enhancing both customer and merchant experiences.
Implementation Method 1
automatically weighing the products in the storage subarea before and after shopping through an automatic weighing unit located at a bottom of the storage subarea
Implementation Method 2
acquiring a real-time position of the customer; determining whether the customer is shopping according to a distance between the customer and the storage subarea
Data Source
AI summary
An open self-service sales system based on positioning of customers includes an open partitioned weight-sensing rack including multiple storage subareas. The open self-service sales system further includes a positioning module and an automatic weighing unit which are connected to the central control module. The position information of the customer is bound with the subareas to accurately identify customers and the purchasing behaviors. The data flow is simple and reliable, and a large number of computing is avoided, which is suitable for large customer flows.