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US 12,180,004 B2Granted
Autonomous storage and retrieval tower
AssigneeWalmart Apollo, LLC
InventorsPaul Edward Durkee, Bradley Johnson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An autonomous storage and retrieval tower for receiving, storing, and dispensing free physical products.
Claims20
An autonomous storage and retrieval system, the system comprising:
- a plurality of storage locations, each of the storage locations configured to support one or more physical items, the one or more physical items including physical items purchased by one or more customers and physical items to be given out for free to a customer of the one or more customers;
- a receptacle for receiving the one or more physical items and for outputting the one or more physical items from the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- an application programming interface (API) in communication with a fulfillment server for tracking the one or more physical items purchased by the consumers within the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- an input device for receiving an input from a user for retrieving a physical item of the one or more physical items from the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- a controller in communication with the API, the controller configured to:
- receive the input from the input device for retrieving the physical item from the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- determine that the physical item associated with the input and to be retrieved from the autonomous storage and retrieval system is associated with a free physical item to be given out for free to the customer;
- and
- instruct dispensing of the physical item associated with the input and the free physical item to the customer;
- wherein the customer is permitted to retrieve the physical item and the dispensed free physical item from the receptacle.
7 more elements
A method of storing and retrieving one or more physical items, the method comprising:
- providing a plurality of storage locations, each of the storage locations configured to support one or more physical items, the one or more physical items including physical items purchased by one or more customers and physical items to be given out for free to a customer of the one or more customers;
- providing a receptacle for receiving the one or more physical items and for outputting the one or more physical items from the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- providing an application programming interface (API) in communication with a fulfillment server for tracking the one or more physical items purchased by the consumers within the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- providing an input device for receiving an input from a user for retrieving a physical item of the one or more physical items from the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- providing a controller in communication with the API;
- by the controller:
- receiving the input from the input device for retrieving the physical item from the autonomous storage and retrieval system;
- determining that the physical item associated with the input and to be retrieved from the autonomous storage and retrieval system is associated with a free physical item to be given out for free to the customer;
- instructing dispensing of the physical item associated with the input and the free physical item to the customer;
- and
- permitting the customer to retrieve the physical item and the dispensed free physical item from the receptacle.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.