Good day all!
On 15 March 2013, our lecturer asked us to attend the
Invention, Innovation and Design Expo 2013 at DATC. It was really interesting
as there are a lot of new inventions that have been invented. From all the
inventions, the Intelligent Supermarket Navigator really caught my interest ( but i'm afraid that it's not in the market yet). It is a system that helps shoppers in the
supermarket to collect all items from their shopping list in the most efficient
way and it is the first intelligent supermarket navigator in Malaysia (first
invented in year 2012). This system has implemented an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)
technique, which is based on the observation that ants can find the optimal
path between a food source and their nest, exploiting a mix of probabilistic
behaviour and pheromone depositing.
How to use this
system? Users may install the application from their smartphones using Google
application. The system is based on colour where every items or products are
distinguished using specific colour so that users can easily search the items. All the users need to do is to click the
items or products they want and automatically it will show the item’s location,
route, and time to get there. Before the users proceed to the cashier counter,
the total payment for all items that they take will be shown. This will help
the user to prepare enough money for payment.
What are the advantages of this system? It prevents users from being lost or faces any
difficulty during shopping where it helps shoppers to search their product in
the supermarket, provides assistance to shoppers to find the shortest path to
get all items that they want to purchase and it provides an effective marketing
and increase sales for the retailing companies. In addition, if there are
emergency cases, it is able to find the shortest time to the safe area. It can
be an aided tool during emergency situation. For instance, fire inside the
supermarket by guiding shoppers to the safe place of the supermarket.
Credit to Dr. Marina Yusoff and teams from Faculty of Computer
and Mathematical Sciences for the information. That’s all for today.. See ya in my next entri!!
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