Showing products in a retail store digital twin with item location captured by an RFID robot

Abstract

In this paper we present the initial version of a digital twin of an actual retail store, on which product information is shown on a 3D-like interface which allows virtual browsing. For this, an RFID robot was used which captured both the inventory of all the items in the store, as well as their estimated location. This information was merged with the retailer’s catalogue to add the photographs, description, and price of each product to the inventory. Finally, this information was merged with the digital twin prototype of the store, resulting in an interface that allows a user to virtually navigate the store, clicking on the images of the shelves to obtain the list of products actually available in the store, as well as the related information. The location accuracy was measured against a ground truth of 250 products whose position was measured, and the average error was less than one meter. This digital twin interface supports many important use cases, including picking routes for in-store fulfilment of on-line orders, re-shelving misplaced items, or guiding customers to predetermined products.