LG has developed a robot cart, CLOi, which will help people to shop in supermarkets.
Visitors to stores no longer have to push a cart full of goods in front of them, trying to maneuver between shelves with products and other customers. Now hands will be free, and a special robot will take all the collected goods to the checkout. The first stores in which such devices will appear will be the supermarkets of the Korean E-Mart network.
New robots will not only help buyers to carry purchases but also make the shopping process more pleasant. The "smart baskets" will have a built-in display for displaying a list of products, as well as a scanner for reading bar codes and determining the price of goods. In addition, the robot will be able to point the visitor the way to the racks with the desired products.
Testing of store robots in the E-Mart network will begin next year. About the agreement reached, LG announced 5 November. The company E-Mart, in stores where customers will be served by the “carts of the future”, has already launched a supermarket without cashiers in Korea’s capital, Seoul.