PRE2018 1 Group3

0LAUK0 Group 3

Dirk Heldens 0969145

Geert van Wordragen 1024503

Islam Lakehal 1203310

Nosa Dielingen 1023912

Tristan de Waard 0996117

Subject

Store clerk robot

State of the art research

The use of robots in a retail environment like stores and supermarkets has been a frequent subject for research. This research can be subdivided into a variety of smaller fields: Navigation of robots in indoor environments with people and/or other robots. (e.g. [1], [2], [3], [12], [17])

Navigation of the robot in a shopping environment is an essential function it should have. Several approaches to navigation were found: Articles here describe the use of models that describe buildings in storeys, rooms, a set of places in each room and connectors among these. There is made use of so-called ‘highways’ for pre-determined robot paths and ‘off-roads’ where the robot plans its own path [1]. A different approach is the use of a sensor space as elaborated on in [2]. Other articles describe a modeling approach that predicts the surrounding pedestrian’s actions so that the robot can develop its own path. One promising example is an agent-based modeling approach where surrounding pedestrians are assigned the behaviours interact, watch, curious, ignore, cautious and avoid [12].

Design of appropriate actuators. (e.g. [4], [5])

The robot should be able to move around various objects, these could be heavy or fragile. Article [4] describes the use of a force control parameter for robot grippers, so that fragile objects will not be damage by actuators. Article [5] emphasises the challenge of designing safe actuators for human-centred robotics. The articles states that by reducing the effective impedance while maintain high frequency torque capability in actuators, safety and performance requirements can be achieved.

Design of appropriate sensors. (e.g. [10], [15], [17])

Various sensors are needed, especially for localisation and navigation purposes but also for object recognition. According to [17] the advances in computer vision have led to an increase in the use of cameras as sensors. They are often combined with other sensors such as odometry or lasers. Omnidirectional sensors stand out in the richness of information they provide. These sensors, together with robust models of the environment are important for designing an autonomous mobile robot.

Object recognition (in a shop context). (e.g. [19], [21], [25])

(Camera) sensors could be used for object recognition, which is an essential task for this robot application. The robot should be able to distinguish a large variety of shopping goods and should be able to detect if the product is misaligned or missing in the shelves. Article [19] describes a vision system where the user can specify an object the robot has to find and bring. When the recognition result is shown, the user can provide additional information, such as point out mistakes. Article [21] proposes a novel method for obtaining product count directly from an image using a monocular camera. Article [25] describes a patrolling robot that detects misaligned and out of stock products and provides the store associates with alert messages.

The social or legislation issues that arise when robots enter the workspace. (e.g. [6], [7], [8], [11], [13])

Robots working alongside humans could pose safety issues as well as open up question on how robots should interact (verbally) with humans. Another problem is that the use of robots could make humans redundant in this field of the job market. Article [8] says that retail automation is essential in competitiveness, but could lead to the minimum-wage employees being redundant as the robots are far cheaper. Robot store clerks are likely to be a disruptive force for the retail industry, this article states. Article [11] emphasises more on self-aware robots that become a part of society (including the retail sector) where brands are used as self-expression. Article [13] describes a means for robots to detect human action to make the cooperation between humans and robots in the workspace more attractive.

Human-robot interactions during shopping activities. (e.g. [9], [14], [22])

A robot store clerk should also be able to interact with humans. Humans might want information about a product or want to know where it is located. Article [9] proposes a robotic shopping companion to help customers in their shopping activities. Furthermore, the robot collects the emotional state of people through social interactions and then use that to influence people’s buying decisions. Article [14] goes further with investigating ways in which robots can persuade people. This could be applied to the robot store clerk in persuading people to buy a certain product. Article [22] describes ways in which verbal output of a robot can be made more human-like by introducing context-aware conversational fillers.

A combination of above fields, applied to a designed robot. (e.g. [16], [18], [20], [23], [24])

These articles describe a fully working system of a robot working in a retail environment. Especially article [20] is a great example, where a system is built that automates data collection for surveying and monitoring the shelves. The robot here can monitor shelves autonomously or through tele-operation. It can automatically detect out of stock situations. According to this article it will improve customer satisfaction, as shelve products are filled more frequently. The deployment also would not require modifying the existing store infrastructure and has a short return-on-investment period.

Problem Statement

Food prices have been steadily growing since 2006 [BRON]. Because of this, the highly competitive supermarkets have had to increase prices tremendously. For example, butter and margarine prices have gone up with a staggering 54.9% over the past 10 years [BRON]. It is important to give supermarkets more chance to compete and increase their customer satisfaction. A solution might be found by streamlining, increasing the efficiency and economizing the state-of-the-art supermarket. Since self check-out services already are cost efficient, enhance customer satisfaction and are already becoming more and more abundant [BRON], an emphasis will be laid on the role of a store clerk in the supermarket. This research proposes the design of a robot store-clerk that either assists the human store clerk in inconvenient tasks, or acts as a replacement for the store clerk. Apart from the expected positive economic effects for supermarket enterprises, the negative and positive effects on users and society will be investigated thoroughly as well. To investigate the user’s needs, two surveys will be conducted: one targeting the general consumer another targeting store clerks. To demonstrate the functions of a store clerk robot a prototype will be made.