LEDs and radio waves could help locate items in shops
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A hybrid location identification system that uses radio-frequency transmitters and overhead LED lights could help shoppers locate items in a shop.
Researchers from Penn State and Hallym University in South Korea believe that large shopping centres could integrate overhead LED lights with an assigned location code in order to direct shoppers to a desired item.
The idea is that a shopper logs his or her item request on a computer or over a phone at the shop entrance and the location of the item is then revealed on a screen.
Mohsen Kavehrad, director of the Centre for Information and Communications Technology Research at Penn State University, said: ‘The same lights that brighten a room can also provide locational information.’
However, LED-transmitted locational information alone will not work because light does not transmit through walls.
Kavehrad, working with Zhou Zhou, a graduate student in electrical engineering at Penn State University, used a ZigBee wireless transfer network to combat this problem.
ZigBee is designed for small, low-power, digital radio-frequency applications that require the short-range wireless transfer of data at relatively low rates.
The request for an item goes from the computer and is transmitted through several short radio-frequency receivers and transmitters placed throughout a shopping centre. When the network locates the correct item’s LED location code, a signal is sent back to the computer via the wireless network, showing where that item can be found.
Even when merchandise is moved from room to room, the accurate location remains available because a different LED overhead light with a different location code signals the tag.
This hybrid model could be useful in other situations. A hybrid system in a high-rise office building, for example, could not only tell the system someone was in the building but could also identify the floor on which the person was at that time.
Readers' comments (8)
Anonymous | 27 Jan 2012 3:14 pm
Mmm, seems like a bit of a waste of time to me. How will the 'overhead LEDs' that are also the lighting, differentiate between the many different customer requests?
Surely a store with enough custom to warrant this sort of thing would be constantly lit up in a frenetic epileptic enducing barrage of no use to anyone.
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Anonymous | 28 Jan 2012 3:21 pm
The writer of last comment should read the conference paper. These LEDs have a driver that sends a light sequence that identifies the location and item.
I never shop in darkness, so I buy what I can see.
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Chris Wood | 30 Jan 2012 7:49 am
I thought the whole point to marketing was to get people to take the longest route to what they want so they have a larger chance of seeing something they don't want but might pick up anyway...
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Anonymous | 30 Jan 2012 1:52 pm
Most super stores regularly move items around the store so that shoppers are "forced" to look for the items.
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G Faber | 30 Jan 2012 8:38 pm
I have trouble seeing this work for customers ... but it would revolutionise stock keeping!
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jane3246 | 30 Jan 2012 10:38 pm
So when I enter the store I'm going to spend 5+ minutes pushing the tiny keypad & waiting on my smartphone to tell me where an item is? In the same amount of time I could just walk around and find it, get more exercise. This is just another exuse for laziness.
If they want to do something really useful, they should invent a self-checkout system that WORKS whereby I don't have to scan each item myself, thereby providing labor for the retailer. I'd like each product to be able to emit some kind of signal or have a magnetic barcode that is able to be sensed (not scanned), I can put my whole cart on a conveyer belt, when it comes out the other end of the tube, I have my bill total on the screen & I can pay, the process should take less than 5 minutes. Then I can bag my items on a separate line so the next customer can get on his way. Can someone do this one simple thing, pleeeasse!
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Robert | 31 Jan 2012 11:05 am
Jane - RFID?
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Sesh | 7 Feb 2012 4:35 am
All we need approx location. A few touch screen help locations placed strategically in the store would as effective and elegant. I have used this help at wegmans in Rochester ny
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