Smart Basket Using RFID Technology

In urban areas, shopping centers face a surge in visitor traffic during holidays and weekends, particularly when attractive discounts are offered. Shoppers often accumulate diverse items in their carts, leading to the need for checkout at billing counters. This manual process, involving barcode scanning by cashiers, tends to be time-consuming resulting in extended lines at the checkout counters. This paper introduces a solution aimed at optimizing the operations of shopping centers. It entails the deployment of RFID tags on all store items and the enhancement of each shopping cart with RFID reader and LCD screen. As shoppers place items in their carts, the system autonomously identifies the item's code, displays its name and price on the LCD screen, and calculates the total expenses in real-time. In cases where a shopper decides to remove an item from their cart, the system deducts the item's cost from the total and transmits this information to the central billing unit through a Wi-Fi module. Additionally, an Android application enriches the shopping experience by providing access to product information, shopping history, item lists, promotions, store navigation, and the convenience of parallel shopping, among other features. When items with RFID tags come within range of the cart's RFID reader, consumers seamlessly retrieve this data from the server databases. Consequently, billing can be efficiently conducted directly within individual shopping carts, resulting in substantial time savings for customers. This proposed system offers a practical solution for enhancing the efficiency and convenience of shopping in busy metropolitan areas.