The first self-checkout system was installed in 1986 at a Kroger grocery store outside Atlanta. It took several decades, but the technology eventually spread throughout the United States. Considering grocery stores are moving in an automated direction, it seems like robotic packaging won't be far behind.
MIT's CSAIL department is debuting RoboGrocery this week. It combines computer vision with a soft robotic gripper to place a variety of items into bags. To test this system, the researchers placed 10 objects unknown to the robot on a grocery conveyor belt.
Products ranged from delicate items like grapes, bread, kale, muffins, and crackers to much more sturdy items like soup cans, meal boxes, and ice cream containers. The vision system operates first, detecting objects before determining their size and orientation on the belt.
When the grabber touches the grape, the pressure sensor in his finger determines that the grape is indeed delicate and should not touch the bottom of the bag, a fact that many of us have learned the hard way. Then, he realizes that the soup can is a more solid structure and places it at the bottom of the bag.
“This is an important first step toward enabling robots to pack groceries and other items in real-world environments,” said Annan Zhang, one of the study’s lead authors. “Although not yet ready for commercial deployment, our research demonstrates the power of integrating multiple sensing modalities into soft robotic systems.”
The team notes that there is still a lot of room for improvement, including upgrading grabbers and imaging systems to better determine how and in what order to pack items. As the system becomes more robust, it could also expand outside of grocery stores and into industrial spaces such as recycling plants.
