Smart Supermarket Cart – An EPS@ISEP 2023 Project

The technological revolution experienced over the last two decades, together with changes in shopping behaviour, has led supermarkets to consider smart shopping trolleys. Recently, several companies have tested and implemented smart services and devices, such as smart shopping carts with scanners, automatic payment methods, or self-payment locations, to maximise supermarket profits by reducing staff and improving the customer experience. In the spring of 2023, a team of six students enrolled in the European Project Semester at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) proposed FESmarket, an innovative smart shopping cart solution. The user-centred design focused on making the shopping interaction and experience more efficient, comfortable, and satisfactory. Form (balancing aesthetics with innovation), function (selecting functionalities based on the most disruptive technologies), market (fulfilling the identified needs), sustainability (minimising the use of resources), and ethics (respecting human values) are the pillars of the project. FESmarket proposes a smart shopping trolley equipped a built-in touch screen for real-time information on products and their location, cameras for product identification, an audio assistance system, a refrigeration chamber, and a mobile app interface for the customer. Finally, a proof-of-concept prototype was assembled and tested to validate the viability of the designed solution.