Major Retailer Tests Robots for Blind Shoppers - ' Cost '
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The cost of the robots will vary depending on how many of them Kulyukin's team is asked to create, but he purposely kept the cost low. To create a second robot would cost him about $10,000, he said, adding that the per-unit cost would drop to about $4,000 to $5,000 if thousands were ordered and to about $1,500 if millions were ordered. He said he will need about $3 million to $5 million in seed money to move to the next stage of development and production.
The technical hardware of the system is simple: Most of the components sit in a PVC pipe structure. The robot's microcontroller is attached to a laptop, with which it communicates via serial cable. The laptop also can communicate using an 802.11b wireless card.
Kulyukin said he has spent much of his life focused on using technology to help those with physical challenges, partly to help his brother, who has always had severe hearing disabilities. "Growing up as the brother of a disabled child, I know firsthand how harsh the environment can be on you," he said.
The problem of blind shoppers is fairly widespread. The National Institutes of Health's National Eye Institute estimates that 80 million Americans today have potentially blinding eye diseases and 1.1 million people are legally blind.
"Approximately 12 million people have some degree of visual impairment that cannot be corrected by glasses, and more than 100 million people need corrective lenses to see properly," the institute's Web site says.
Given that RG is only in very limited experimentation today, how do most blind consumers shop? "They simply don't go grocery shopping," Kulyukin said. "If you happen to have a sighted spouse or a friend, that's what you do. [RG] is an independence device."
The business side of the retail argument for these robots is twofold. First, the people who shop for those blind consumers might not shop at the places those consumers would want. These kinds of robots would return the store-selection power back to those consumers.
Secondly, not many grocery stores have the financial resources of a Wal-Mart to invest in this level of robotic technology. Arguably, this could be a major differentiating factor in bringing visually impaired customers—and their friends and families—to Wal-Mart who might otherwise have shopped at the competition.
Kulyukin also said that having a small squadron of robots around a retail shop could be valuable in other ways. When there are no customers using the robots, they can assist in moving merchandise, carrying extremely heavy boxes and unloading trucks. After all, what good is having a bionic robotic arm if it's not flexed once in a while?
The robot "doesn't have to sit idly in the store. It can optimize the store's supply operations," Kulyukin said. "Instead of letting a truck come to the store and having it unloaded manually, load it onto the robot and then let the robot deliver it."
Evan Schuman can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.
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