Robot-assisted shopping for the visually impaired: proof-of-concept design and feasibility evaluation.
This article presents RoboCart, a proof-of-concept prototype of a robotic shopping cart for the visually impaired in supermarkets. RoboCart autonomously leads shoppers to required locations and cues them through synthetic speech and a portable barcode reader to the salient features of the environment sufficient for product retrieval. In a longitudinal pilot feasibility study, visually impaired shoppers (n = 10) used the device to retrieve products in Lee's MarketPlace, a supermarket in Logan, Utah. The main finding is that RoboCart enables visually impaired shoppers to reliably and independently navigate to and retrieve products in a real supermarket.
Kulyukin
Vladimir
V
Computer Science Assistive Technology Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322-4205, USA. vladimir.kulyukin@usu.edu
Gharpure
Chaitanya
C
Coster
Daniel
D
D003132:Commerce; D004867:Equipment Design; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005511:Food Handling; D012371:Robotics; D012656:Self-Help Devices; D019987:Persons with Visual Disabilities