Product Pallet Smartphone Detection for Shop-Floor Placement Checks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Suppliers cannot verify in an automated manner whether promoted products are correctly placed on the shop floor as agreed, leading to inefficiencies in marketing efforts.
Innovation Solution
A product pallet equipped with an autonomous module that includes a smartphone-seeking module and a transmission module, utilizing low-energy data links to detect and transmit smartphone MAC addresses, determining the pallet's location based on smartphone presence.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If manual verification of product placement is used, then suppliers can verify product placement, but it increases labor costs and time consumption
Solution Approach 1:
The product pallet performs self-verification by automatically detecting the presence of smartphones in its vicinity and determining its own location status (shop floor vs. stockroom). The autonomous module on the pallet initiates detection and transmission without requiring external manual verification, enabling the system to monitor itself and eliminate the need for manual checks.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical verification with an electronic autonomous module that uses wireless communication (WLAN, Bluetooth, NFC) to detect smartphones and determine location. This substitution of mechanical/manual inspection with electronic sensing and data transmission achieves automation and reduces time consumption.
2Measurement precision
If continuous monitoring of smartphone presence is implemented, then location verification accuracy is improved, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The autonomous module performs smartphone detection periodically rather than continuously. It activates the detection function at specific intervals or when triggered by events such as pallet movement, maintaining sufficient measurement precision while significantly reducing energy consumption compared to continuous monitoring.
Solution Approach 2:
The detection function is made dynamic and adaptable. The module can adjust its monitoring intensity based on conditions - for example, performing detailed smartphone detection only when the pallet is in suspected shop floor locations or when movement sensors detect relocation, thereby optimizing the balance between measurement accuracy and energy usage.
Data Source
Figure 1~2
AI summary
The invention relates to a product pallet (10) comprising an autonomous module (20), which has a smartphone-seeking module (24), by which the presence of smartphones in the vicinity of the product pallet (10) can be detected, and a transmission module (22), by which data can be transferred over a data network. The invention also relates to a method for establishing the position of a product pallet (10) in a shop, wherein, in a first step, a module (20) provided on a product pallet (10) detects which smartphones are located in the vicinity of the product pallet (10), and, in a second step, a decision is made in an automated manner as to whether the product pallet (10) is located on a shop floor of a shop or in the shop stockroom depending on the number of detected smartphones.