okay project idea: shopping cart and radio car

[mr. mister]

Just came up with something new

1. a shopping cart that could follow the customer, ideal for disabled people or for equipments in warehouses

maybe customer could wear a transmitter and cart has a receiver that pin points the customer's position and follows the customer within a specific distance e.g. will only move to follow the customer if the customer is more than 2 feet away from the cart



2. mentioned this idea once, a radio controlled car with transceiver connected to computer by serial interface and transceiver in the car. car will have also a camera that sends visual images back to the computer, in which the user can control the car based on visual information seen on the computer screen and sending control information such as moving forward, back, etc via an onscreen GUI (made using visual basic?)

 

[tansis]

Your first idea has some merit and would be of some interest to the large supermarket chains. Why? Simple when you think about it. One of the subliminal and unconcious cues that influence shoppers behavior is the mass/inertia of the laden trolley, relieved of this burden they may be inclined to purchase more items, and as one trolley becomes fully laden another will silently sneak up and swap position with the first which then goes and waits patiently by the exit for you.
The pedestrian tracking aspect may be better implemented by ultrasonic or infra red range finder arrays, but for a really neat piece of innovation could not the trolly be fitted with a wide apature bar-code scanner, not just to record the items being placed within but to track the position a printed label affixed to the customer.
ok , I know the label would have to on thier back for this to work independantly , but the technology is cheap and scanners could be fitted along the shelves. No waiting in line at the checkout, hell, no checkout required just leave and go to your car, credit card deducted as you leave the store, trolley finds it's own way back.

 

[Klaus]

I can see the headlines already "little old lady ran over by unattended shopping trolley"
I dare say such a system would be a confounded nuisance in the supermarket I shop at, there are already shopping trollewy traffic jams in the aisles if one goes shopping during the busy periods.
Just imagine two trolleys, "following" their masters and approaching from the opposite direction in a crowded aisle. It'll be either a head on or a merry little dance as the trolley computers try to figure out on which side to pass each other.

Another scenario: the shopper stops suddenly, having spotted some bargain on a shelf. There better be some pretty smart control device on the trolley, capable of stopping equally suddenly, or the poor shopper gets run over. The lawyers would have a field day with that one :wink: .


Nah, I vote this idea thumbs down, its too troublesome to have remotely powered trolleys and shoppers in the same aisle at the same time.

What's more, all this costs money and the customer pays it in the end with marked up prices on the shelves. Shopping is expensive enough already, we pay for the trolleys and those that have gone 'walkabout', just imagine these expensive motorised trolleys being 'borrowed' for joy rides by unruly kids.

You'd better fit a good camera onto the trolley and figure out a way it could be driven around the shop by remote control from your home, doing the shopping by robot arm. Pick the shopping up later at some drive by loading dock, it already having been paid for. Such systems are already in use in large ware houses.

Klaus

 

[tansis]

The prospect of "free" robotics hardware does have some appeal :lol:
though I suspect some budding student will get his PHD for the collision avoidance / tracking software oneday, if nothing else scanners on the shelves could monitor browsing habits, after all market researchers study the video within stores understand consumer habits and responces to various psych tricks...

If this has left anyone a little paranoid of the idea of robots in shopping centres take a look at these links.... :twisted:
https://www.badmovies.org/othermovies/chopmall/chopmall2.wav
more audio and stills here
https://www.badmovies.org/othermovies/chopmall/

 

[grrr_arrghh]

as for the trolley idea:

machines following humans is not a good idea. Humans are extremely fickle, and change their minds at the flick of a err, well something flickable... anyway, this may be of some use in a warehouse, where a computer tells a machine to fetch a a particular part from a shelf. It could also be used in a supermarket, but it would have to run on rails, and travel at a constant speed around the supermarket. Shopping would become impossible.

As for scanning the items as you buy them, that system is already common place here in the UK... you scan everything - it even brings up messages on the screen about special offers - and at the end, you scan a 'finished' bar code, and the data is transmitted wirelessly, and you put your card in a slot, and thats it. A system could be set up where you don't even have to put your card in a machine, it remembers your card, but that would leave it open to fraud.

You'd better fit a good camera onto the trolley and figure out a way it could be driven around the shop by remote control from your home, doing the shopping by robot arm. Pick the shopping up later at some drive by loading dock, it already having been paid for. Such systems are already in use in large ware houses.

such a system operates in many supermarkets in the UK, where you buy the stuff online, and the list is sent to a central warehouse, and the order is put together for you. However, this still has to be done by humans, because machines couldn't work out acceptable substitutions for out of stock items, and machines may pick rotten fruit etc.

just a few ideas

It would be good as a project to test your skills, but as a commercial product, its a no-go I'm afraid. At least in this decade.

Tim

 

[tansis]

An automated supermarket wharehouse shelf stacker / order picking system could be implemented with todays technology for tinned and dry packet goods, some changes to packaging may be needed for ease of handling but there are no significant problems. Frozen items present something of a challange, quite how a robot would manage when forced to wrestle a bag of frozen peas remains to be seen, again a change in packaging may be the way forward here. As for "fresh" produce well some human intervention may be requied, however sensor technology has come a long way in recent years and the electronic nose is a reality.
Now the human element does not need to be on site the end consumer could view remotely the fresh produce selection anf make thier own choice.

A less crowded envrioment may see the introduction of following robots first , for instance the golf course perhaps? or leaping further I believe NASA was tinkering with the idea for the mars mission.