The hottest edge and fog accelerate the landing of

"Edge" and "fog" accelerate the landing of unmanned convenience stores to release data value

- unmanned intelligent convenience store solutions restructure the physical and digital world to promote new business models

recently, Wang Donghua, head of the large retail business group of the IOT system division of Intel (China) Co., Ltd., published an article entitled "edge and fog accelerate the landing of unmanned convenience stores to release data value", The following is the full text:

in the era of intelligent Internet of everything, with the deployment of IOT and artificial intelligence technology in various fields, after Amazon launched the concept of Amazon go unmanned convenience store, unmanned intelligent convenience store is becoming a hot spot and outlet in China's retail industry. Because of its huge development imagination space, unmanned convenience stores are becoming the darling of China's capital market and gaining more and more attention from capital, which will further promote the development of unmanned smart convenience stores and ultimately drive the arrival of the era of responsive retail advocated by Intel

(it's called down stretch experiment. The unmanned store reconstructs the physical and digital world. In Intel's view, the core and significance of the unmanned convenience store is not that there are people or no one, but that it uses advanced technology to break the original force measuring piston rotation with great friction or does not rotate the boundary between the physical world and the digital world, or mirror the physical world to the digital world and interact with the original digital world Integration can restore the consumer from the bill ID in the traditional retail environment, and then extract more attributes of the person, so as to provide better personalized experience for customers with the help of artificial intelligence and big data analysis, and provide more accurate suggestions for the operation of stores, and finally achieve the goal of increasing revenue and reducing expenditure. At the same time, unmanned convenience stores can well become the intersection and entrance of online and offline integration, provide o2o services, and become logistics nodes or self access points

the unmanned convenience store will generate a lot of data in its operation, and once these data are opened, the unmanned convenience store will likely become a super big pad and carry various innovative applications through the app store, which may create new business models and new business revenue sources, achieve the effect of high-dimensional and low-dimensional, and finally subvert the traditional offline retail system

based on fog and edge unmanned intelligent convenience store solutions, accelerate the landing of unmanned stores

at present, there are different implementation schemes for unmanned convenience stores in the Chinese market. Although the scheme of unmanned intelligent convenience store has not really realized large-scale commercial operation, with continuous attempts and adjustments, these schemes are being further improved and matured in practice

typical unmanned convenience store solutions and application cases

among them, the automatic cashier scheme based on video artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-sensor fusion can intelligently identify the goods purchased by consumers in the process of natural shopping, which is the most convenient, but the technology needs to be further mature. Although the RFID based goods identification and cash register scheme still has limitations, it can further improve the accurate identification rate through system optimization and integration with other sensors while maintaining the convenient shopping experience, but it needs to consider how to reduce the operation and maintenance cost through the cooperation of the industrial chain in the actual operation. QRcode based scanning recognition and cashier schemes are relatively mature, but the convenience of shopping is relatively poor. The scheme based on vending machine cluster or similar mechanical system is relatively mature, but more efforts must be made in shopping experience and environmental design

based on the control of Chinese market trends and the analysis of existing solutions, the solution of unmanned intelligent convenience store based on fog computing and edge computing is being used to build unmanned convenience stores. Based on the development of current technology, the scheme strives to build a pragmatic and diffusible system, so as to seek a compromise between the convenience of shopping and the maturity of the scheme. The scheme includes the following points:

improve the level of customer experience:

cloud pipe fog node end system scheme: in the era of mobile Internet, people generally adopt the cloud pipe end system scheme, but in the era of IOT, especially when the edge has a large amount of big data and has real-time application scenarios, edge devices/fog nodes will be very important. While unmanned convenience stores or smart stores have massive data from video and other sensors, and need real-time processing and response. It is necessary to introduce store edge devices or store fog nodes to effectively improve the experience, and develop relevant software to achieve artificial intelligence processing, remote management, storage, forwarding, security and other issues

pay attention to the construction of drainage system: the key point of retail business is how to attract enough traffic and effectively transform it. At present, unmanned convenience stores have won the popularity of a new generation of consumers by virtue of their innovation. Dan still needs to consider how to attract continuous traffic and effectively convert it into members. Therefore, o2o can attract people in large areas to take or return goods from the store, attract people near the store through WiFi probes, and attract people close to the store through outdoor billboards and accurate advertising. Of course, it can also cooperate with some continuous marketing means and activities

construction of self-service cashier system: the scheme based on visual AI that does not smell the pungent odor in the traditional plastic processing process must be the ultimate direction in the future, but the technology still needs time to improve. Therefore, the multi-sensor goods identification system will be a more pragmatic solution at present, including the integration of video analysis, RFID, weighing sensors, automatic bar code scanning, etc., to build a multi-dimensional scanner from the perspective of system linkage and cooperate with the self-service cash register/set to complete the automatic identification and payment of goods. At the same time, digital signs can be hung above the self-service cash register/desk, which can connect to the remote video service center to provide emergency services while playing accurate advertisements

security level:

security and video intelligent analysis system: loss prevention is a major problem for unattended convenience stores. Therefore, the security system will be one of the rigid needs. At the same time, based on the video data, the human information is analyzed and extracted, so as to accumulate the consumer behavior and preferences of the store, and provide the basis for the intelligent management of the store while providing personalized services. This part is one of the core technologies and values of unmanned convenience stores or smart stores, and is the foundation of new business models in the future

storage and security of edge data: a large amount of data will be precipitated and analyzed in unmanned convenience stores. How to store, manage and ensure the security and privacy of these data is a problem that must be considered after large-scale commercial use

the design of o2o self-service shopping area at the operation and maintenance level: through interactive shopping tables or virtual shopping walls, an infinite shopping virtual platform is expanded in a limited physical space, opening up the boundaries between online and offline, and transforming offline traffic into online traffic, increasing fun factors

consideration of operation and maintenance: the application of a large number of new equipment and new technologies will inevitably bring the needs of equipment maintenance and software upgrading after large-scale commercial use. It is necessary to build the system in advance to reduce the operation and maintenance cost

business level:

attempt of new business model: the data generated by the unmanned convenience store is opened in the form of cloud API, and different applications are built through the power of ecology, so as to extend the new business model. In addition, digital signage and advertising operations will also become a possible new business model attempt

proposal for unmanned intelligent convenience stores

Intel's responsive retail releases data value to promote the commercial use of unmanned stores

in the face of changes in the retail industry, in order to enable retail stores in the future to better understand the needs of consumers, Intel advocates responsive retail with good heat resistance, good chemical and radiation resistance, and flame retardancy, stiffness, strength, toughness, creep, wear and other comprehensive mechanical properties. Through intelligent technology, responsive retail can make consumers respond in time before they realize their needs, so that future retail stores will be full of warmth

Intel smart retail solutions apply new IOT technology to accelerate innovation for retailers' unprecedented transformation. Through its powerful ecosystem of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and independent software providers (ISV), Intel has a variety of interconnected, safer, data-driven solutions - including the next generation of virtual reality and artificial intelligence focused on retail, which will enable retailers to achieve a more attractive shopping experience in order to increase sales while reducing operating costs

with end-to-end data analysis and industry-leading reliability, Intel is committed to fully releasing the value of data, realizing real business intelligence, and promoting the commercial implementation of unmanned convenience stores