Store shelf imaging system and method

A store profile generation system comprising:

• a robotic mobile base including an operatively associated primary navigation component configured to determine a location of the robotic mobile base within a retail environment, the retail environment including a plurality of product display units arranged in a plurality of aisles, each product display unit including a plurality of product display fixtures, a plurality of products arranged on the product display fixtures and a plurality of tags attached to the product display fixtures, each tag including product related data including a barcode associated with a respective product proximately located on the product display fixture near the tag;
• a digital image capture assembly mounted on the robotic mobile base, the digital image capture assembly including a plurality of digital image capture devices vertically arranged to acquire digital images of the product display fixture and cover an entire vertical height of the product display fixture;
• a plurality of distributed controllers, each of the distributed controllers operatively associated with one of the plurality of digital image capture devices and operatively associated with a master control unit, the distributed controllers configured to operate in parallel and independently drive a respective digital image capture device, store acquired digital images of the product display units, and communicate the stored acquired digital images of the product display units to the master control unit;
• a secondary navigation component, the secondary navigation component configured to perform an image-based accuracy correction of a location of the robotic mobile base along an aisle of the retail environment reported by the primary navigation component operatively associated with the robotic mobile base, the image-based accuracy corrections including processing sequentially acquired digital images of a product display unit which includes an overlapping portion and a non-overlapping portion, and determining a shift distance associated with aligning the overlapping portions of the two sequentially acquired images, the shift distance applied to the robotic mobile base location reported by the primary navigation component operatively associated with the robotic mobile base to generate a corrected location of the robotic mobile base.

A store profile generation system comprising:

• a robotic mobile base including an operatively associated primary navigation component configured to determine a location of the robotic mobile base within a retail environment, the retail environment including a plurality of product display units arranged in a plurality of aisles, each product display unit including a plurality of product display fixtures, a plurality of products arranged on one or more of the product display fixtures, and a plurality of tags attached to the product display fixtures, each tag including product related data including a barcode associated with a respective product proximately located on the product display fixture near the tag;
• a high resolution (HR) digital image capture assembly mounted on the robotic mobile base, the HR digital image capture assembly including a plurality of high resolution (HR) digital image capture devices configured at a first resolution and a first field of view (FOV) to acquire HR digital images at the product display units;
• a low resolution (LR) digital image capture device configured at a second resolution and a second FOV to acquire LR digital images of the product display units, the second resolution less than the first resolution associated with the HR digital image capture devices and the second FOV horizontally wider and vertically higher than the first FOV associated with the HR digital image capture devices;
• and
• a master control unit operatively associated with the robotic mobile base, the plurality of HR digital image capture devices;
• and the LR digital image capture device, the master control unit including an operatively associated memory configured to store instructions and an operatively associated processer configured to execute the instructions, the master control unit instructions configured to process the acquired HR digital images from the plurality of HR digital image capture devices and the acquired LR digital image from the LR digital image capture device at one or more sequential locations of the robotic mobile base along one or more of the plurality of aisles, the process using the acquired HR digital images to identify the barcodes associated with the plurality of tags and generate a store profile indicating locations of the plurality of tags and their respective products in the retail environment, and the process using the acquired digital LR image to generate a full planogram image of the product display units, the full planogram image including a display facing profile indicating the presence or non-presence of the plurality of products and their respective locations in the retail environment,
• wherein the product display units include one or more of shelving and pegboards,
• wherein a secondary navigation component performs an image-based accuracy correction including processing two sequentially acquired images of a product display unit which include an overlapping portion and a non-overlapping portion, and determining a shift distance associated with aligning the overlapping portions of the two sequentially acquired digital images, the shift distance applied to the location of the robotic mobile base reported by the primary navigation component operatively associated with the robotic mobile base to generate a corrected location of the robotic mobile base, and
• wherein the image-based accuracy correction performs one or more of a cross correlation function between the two sequentially acquired digital images and a Harris Corners Detector function to identify a most frequent shift distance associated with the two sequentially acquired digital images.