Wearable Tactile Navigation for Retail Inventory
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Solution Overview
Problem
In large retail stores, merchandise items are difficult to locate due to poorly identified or mapped locations, causing challenges for both customers and employees in finding intended shelves or storage regions for stocking or inventory management.
Innovation Solution
A wearable navigation device with a band portion, location device, and tactile feedback emitters that provide sequential haptic feedback to direct the wearer to a destination location, including a three-dimensional region, by determining distance and orientation to the location of interest, and communicating with mobile electronic devices for reference location information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional navigation methods (signs, maps) are used in large retail stores, then customers and employees can locate items, but the locations are poorly identified or mapped making navigation difficult and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces traditional visual navigation systems (signs, maps, directories) with a tactile feedback-based wearable navigation device. The system uses haptic feedback emitters that provide directional guidance through tactile signals, eliminating the need for customers and employees to interpret physical signage or纸质 maps, thereby reducing navigation time and improving productivity in large retail environments.
Solution Approach 2:
The wearable navigation device acts as an intermediary between the user and the retail environment. It receives location data from the retail store's positioning system and translates it into tactile feedback signals that guide the user to destinations. This intermediary layer converts complex spatial navigation information into simple, intuitive haptic directions, solving the problem of poorly identified locations.
2Measurement precision
If wearable navigation devices provide detailed tactile feedback to precise locations, then navigation accuracy improves, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The navigation device is segmented into distinct functional modules: a band portion for wearing, a location device for receiving navigation data, and multiple tactile feedback emitters positioned at different locations. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function independently, achieving precise location guidance through coordinated operation of simple, modular elements rather than a single complex unit.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the wearable device provide different types of tactile feedback corresponding to different spatial directions. The feedback emitters are positioned and configured to provide localized haptic signals that indicate specific directional information (e.g., left, right, forward, backward), enabling precise navigation through distributed, location-specific feedback rather than centralized complex processing.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a wearable navigation device, comprising a band portion positioned at a portion of a human body; a location device that receives navigation data regarding a destination location for an item and determines a distance and orientation with respect to a current position of the wearable navigation device to the destination location; and a plurality of tactile feedback emitters that provide tactile feedback to the portion of the human body in a predetermined sequential order to direct a wearer of the band portion to the destination location having a point of intersection of a length, width, and height.