Marty the Robot at Stop&Shop

Good view of what they are doing with robots at Stop@Shop. Mostly to map and feed video images and alerts to spills.  Will not talk to the shopper.  Impressive rollout.   One of the first examples of in store walking with the shopper.  Have never seen it live, but will make a note to.



Marty the Robot Rolls out AI in the Supermarket  in AI Trends
Marty the supermarket robot is among the first to travel with customers in the store, looking to avoid collisions and find spills.    By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor 

When six-foot-four inch Marty first rolled into Stop & Shop, the robot walked into history. Social robot experts say it is among the first instance of a robot deployed in a customer environment, namely supermarkets in the Northeast. 

Marty rolls around the store looking for spills with its three cameras. It does take the place of the human worker, called an associate, that did the same thing, but it means the associate can do something else. Doing the walk-around of the store is seen as a mundane task. 

Marty does not talk or tell jokes. Unlike Alexa, who many children in the store undoubtedly interact with at home, Marty will not respond. The robot does notify associates when it sees with its computer vision that something on the floor needs to be cleaned up, through the public address system. An associate comes over to clean it up, and presses a button on Marty that it’s done. Marty takes a picture of the cleaned-up aisle.    ..." 

Badger Technologies Rolled Out 500 Martys in 2019 

The AI in Marty is concentrated on the machine vision and the collision-avoidance navigation features, according to Tim Rowland, CEO of Badger Technologies, makers of Marty. After trials, Badger rolled out 500 multi-purpose robots into Stop & Shop and Giant/Martin’s grocery stores on the East Coast over the course of 2019. Each Marty is equipped with navigation systems, high-resolution cameras, many sensors and its software systems.   ... "

At the link, much more detail and Images.