Automated Grocery Store News
Writeup on Nourish + Bloom automated grocery store. Tagline is Frictionless retailer gets underway with high-tech grocery concept utilizing lidar and delivery robots
In Brief
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robotic delivery for autonomous grocery store — click for image
Store is 1500 sq feet
- offers “walk in, walk out” functionality
- Related is Delhaize article from December 2021
- over 1,500 SKUs, including produce, meat, baked goods, dairy, center-store groceries, household items and prepared meals.
- Reduces carbon footprint using local brands
- Shoppers enter by scanning a QR code from a UST-built mobile app at a turnstile. Items selected are tracked via LiDAR (light detection and ranging) cameras and automatically added to a virtual shopping cart, with the information is sent to a back-end software developed by UST.
- Robotic vehicles named ‘Nourish’ and ‘Bloom’ provide last-mile delivery of online grocery orders.
Excerpt
UST Vision Checkout is used for large merchandise assortment outside the autonomous store. The self-checkout point-of-sale system employs computer vision to identify products, while voice and gesture artificial intelligence technologies speed checkout for Nourish + Bloom customers, UST said. The POS solution also uses barcode-scanning and touchscreen functionality for specific merchandise sections like age-restricted products, frozen foods, and fruit and vegetables, as well as the Bistro prepared foods section. The UST Product Box tool provides quick onboarding of SKUs requiring computer vision training, and the UST Cold Truth solution brings IoT-based, real-time food temperature measurement at shelf level to foster more efficient operations.
The automated product recognition in Nourish & Bloom Market store is performed by SHEKEL Brainweigh’s Product Aware Technology (PAT), based on IoT load sensors, AI models and machine learning algorithms, UST said. Hitachi Vantara provides the store’s 3D LiDAR technology, which enables monitoring of customers throughout the aisles and linking products to their shopping cart.
Video (uploaded June 2021)