Page 5 - Logistics News April 2018
P. 5

Thought Leadership






            Amazon Go and the emergence



                              of sentient buildings





             Courtesy ChainLink Research










                     Amazon Go’s
            impressive advances
              in computer vision,
                sensor fusion and
                     deep learning
                combine to create
            what is probably the
             simplest and fastest
               bricks and mortar
             shopping experience
                  available today.



            THE AMAZON Go store in Seattle is about            they perform this magic is speculation.
            1,800 square feet. According to Amazon: “We           The system uses the 2D barcode from the
            think of Amazon Go as the fastest place to         Amazon Go app on a phone to link whoever
            grab handmade meals and snacks, essential          has the phone to their Amazon account when
            groceries and fresh, seasonal meal kits to go.     they scan into the store. From the moment
            No checkout. No waiting in line. Just good         a customer scans and enters the store until
            food, fast. It’s the first store with Just Walk    they leave, the system needs to keep track of
            Out Technology, which allows customers to          them, where they are, what items they pick
            grab what they want and just walk out.”            up (and how many) and what items they set
                                                               down. Thus, it keeps a running tally of exactly
            The user experience: getting started               what items a customer walks out of the store
            Customers download and install the 11MB            with.
            Amazon Go app, and, once installed, log in            There are about 200 cameras in the
            using an Amazon account ID and password.           ceiling, all pointed at different angles and
            The app displays a 2D barcode to identify          a few thousand cameras mounted to the
            the customer, which they then use to get into      shelves. Under each shelf, at the front of the
            the store. Once in the store, customers buy        shelf, is a row of lights and cameras pointing
            and pay for things by picking them up and          down at the items on the shelf below. At least
            walking out the store.                             some of the shelves have scales in them to
                                                               help detect when items are taken on or off
            How it works                                       the shelf.
            Amazon is understandably fairly tight-lipped
            about how this all works. They don’t want          Computer vision, sensor fusion and deep
            to make it easy for competitors to reverse         learning
            engineer their technology. As a result, a fair     Amazon is using a combination of computer
            amount of what has been written about how          vision, sensor fusion and deep learning to


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