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US 12,640,000 B2Granted
Robotic vending machine system
AssigneeW.W. Grainger, Inc.
InventorsGeoffry A. Westphal, Viraj Sagar Sahgal, Jean-Marc Francois Reynaud, Erwin Cruz, Thomas Allen Mathis, David Brenner, Sampo Juhani Karvonen, Mehrdad Zakershahrak
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A vending system including a vending machine and a robot. The robot can be adapted to retrieve product from the vending machine for delivery to a user. When the vending machine is mobile, the robot can alternatively move the entirety of the vending machine to a product delivery location.
Claims23
A method for delivering a product from a vending machine to a destination location, comprising:
- determining a path of travel for each of a plurality of robots to retrieve the product from the vending machine and to deliver the retrieved product to the destination location;
- using at least the determined path of travel to determine at least one of an amount of battery charge and an amount of time required for each of the plurality of robots to retrieve the product from the vending machine and to deliver the retrieved product to the destination location, wherein determining at least one of an amount of battery charge includes determining an amount of battery charge required for a robot of the plurality of robots to provide electrical power to the vending machine to operate a product dispensing mechanism of the vending machine;
- using the determined at least one of an amount of battery charge and an amount of time required for each of the plurality of robots to retrieve the product from the vending machine and to deliver the retrieved product to the destination location to select a one of the plurality of robots;
- and
- causing the selected one of the plurality of robots to use its determined path of travel to retrieve the product from the vending machine and to deliver the retrieved product to the destination location, wherein causing the selected robot to retrieve the product further comprises:
- causing the selected robot to dock with the vending machine;
- causing the selected robot to provide electrical power to the vending machine via a docking connection;
- and
- wherein the provided electrical power enables the vending machine to operate the product dispensing mechanism to dispense the product to the selected robot.
6 more elements
A method for delivering a product from a vending machine to a destination location, comprising:
- determining a path of travel for a robot to retrieve the product from the vending machine and to deliver the retrieved product to the destination location;
- and
- causing the robot to use the determined path of travel to retrieve the product from the vending machine and to deliver the retrieved product to the destination location;
- wherein causing the robot to retrieve the product from the vending machine comprises causing the robot to provide power to the vending machine to thereby allow the vending machine to operate a product dispensing mechanism;
- wherein causing the robot to provide power comprises causing the robot to establish a docking connection with the vending machine to transfer electrical power from the robot to the vending machine;
- and
- wherein the product dispensing mechanism is unpowered until the robot provides electrical power via the docking connection.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.