Carnegie Mellon researchers develop robot that takes inventory, helps you find aisle four

Fed up with wandering through supermarket aisles in an effort to cross that last item off your shopping list? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Intel Science and Technology Center in Embedded Computing have developed a robot that could ease your pain and help store owners keep items in stock. Dubbed AndyVision, the bot is equipped with a Kinect sensor, image processing and machine learning algorithms, 2D and 3D images of products and a floor plan of the shop in question. As the mechanized worker roams around, it determines if items are low or out of stock and if they've been incorrectly shelved. Employees then receive the data on iPads and a public display updates an interactive map with product information for shoppers to peruse. The automaton is currently meandering through CMU's campus store, but it's expected to wheel out to a few local retailers for testing sometime next year. Head past the break to catch a video of the automated inventory clerk at work.