RFID-Cloud Smart Cart System

Yerlan Berdaliyev, Alex Pappachen James

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
School of Engineering, Nazarbayev University
Astana, Kazakhstan
[email protected]

Abstract— The main purpose of this work is in reducing the

queuing delays in major supermarkets or other shopping centers by
means of an Electronic Smart Cart System which will introduce an
intellectual approach to billing process through RFID technology.
Smart Cart System is a cooperative performance of three separate
systems: a website developed for the shopping market, electronic
smart cart device and anti-theft RFID gates. This project focuses on (a) (b) [2]
developing the electronic smart cart device itself. It involves an
embedded electronic hardware that consists of an OLED display, Fig. 1. Barcode (a) and barcode reader (b) [2]
Arduino Mega 2560 board, a specifically designed PCB, a Wi-Fi
module, 13.56 MHz HF RFID reader, a power supply and a Therefore, people still tend to line up in queues in front of
shopping cart. cashier’s desk due to the inability of cashier’s billing speed to
catch up with the flow of new customers willing to check-out.
Keywords—HF RFID; Arduino; embedded systems; smart
shopping; cloud computing; C. Solution
One measure to reduce the waiting time of customers is to
I. INTRODUCTION introduce an intelligent billing system using electronic Smart
Cart as an alternative to existing barcode system. Smart cart
A. Problem Statement shown in Figure 2 allows a customer to manually perform
billing without relying on cashier by means of swiping the
Frequently, people encounter a problem of spending too RFID tags over RFID reader. Unlike barcode system, smart
much of their time waiting in queues for billing their purchases cart does not need any visual contact with barcodes which may
in different shopping centers or supermarkets. Waiting in get distorted in real life situations. All data about purchased
queues negatively affects human morale and may cause products and user account data are stored in a cloud database in
misunderstandings or conflict amongst people, for instance, the Internet. Then, smart cart shows this information to
when someone breaks the line and stands in front of other customers on its display. A customer can delete an item from
people [1]. The proposed project aims to eliminate this problem the list whenever he or she wishes. If the customer decides to
by introducing a novel alternative to traditional billing finish purchasing, just a single button press is required to
methods, speeding up the payment process. upload all purchased product data and their total cost to cloud
database. Once all payment data is uploaded to the web, total
B. Barcodes cost is withdrawn from the registered account cash of the
The vast majority of modern supermarkets use barcode system customer. All purchased products are deleted from the cloud
to identify products and check-in customers waiting in queue database and the customer can freely pass the anti-theft gate
[2]. Barcodes represent a series of vertical black lines of with the purchased products.
different thickness and separation distance which can be coded
into data information [2]. Figure 1a shows the barcode drawn
on product packaging. The barcode reader, shown in figure 1b,
reads the data represented by barcodes. In modern
supermarkets, this data involves a unique ID of each product
[2]. All information describing a particular product such as full
name, cost, weight, etc. are stored in primary software
database, and this product is addressed by unique ID that is
read from barcodes [2]. This way, one can easily get all
information about a particular product just by scanning barcode
that is printed in some area on product packaging. Hence,
existing system of barcodes in supermarkets induces Fig. 2. The developed smart shopping cart
possibilities such as automatic calculation of total cost of
purchased items, generating bills and item listings. D. Benefits
The main problem with the existing system of barcode In the community perspective, this project grants obvious
billing is the fact that each product is scanned only one at a benefits as it has the potential to decrease significantly the
time so that total scanning time grows gradually when there are queuing time of customers and save much of precious time of
plenty of purchased products. The barcode scanner is limited every individual shopper. For instance, according to research
by direct visual contact with barcodes [2]. Thus, it cannot scan [3] of British researchers, average queuing time in UK stores
barcodes that stay out of its vision.
is 5 minutes 54 seconds, which is sufficient to miss most of appropriate distance
the important activities such as airplane departure. On the Bar-coded prints may get distorted RFID tags are much less affected by
in wet or hot conditions or may get harsh environmental conditions.
other hand, in the market owners’ and stakeholders’ scratches.
perspective, this system will be beneficial regarding attracting Bar-code scanners are more RFID readers and tags are very cheap
more customers, since their market will provide fast service expensive and massively produced
and save shoppers time. Moreover, the new shopping This technology is passing away As time passes, more markets are
turning to RFID tags.
experience and emerging technology attract more people,
especially the young generation. B. Wi-Fi wireless transmission
II. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW Another important technology used in Smart Cart system is
called Wi-Fi, which is a wireless data transmission technology
A. RFID technology or WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) based on IEEE
802.11 standards [6]. Wi-Fi modules transmit data signals in
One of the major technological advancements of recent 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, which allows for very high data rates [6].
years called RFID or Radio Frequency Identification made it Currently, Wi-Fi is the most popular protocol for wireless
possible to implement this project. RFID technology uses connection and getting access to the Internet. Today, Wi-Fi
wireless propagation of electromagnetic wave signals over a hotspots can be found in almost every major building in a
certain frequency spectrum shown in figure 3 [4]. Generally, civilized country. Moreover, in some cities, whole area inside
there are two types of RFID tags – passive and active [4]. city borders is covered with free Wi-Fi hotspots which grants
Passive RFID tags shown in figure 4 do not have any power citizens free wireless access to the Internet [6]. In this work,
source inside their circuit [4]. Hence, they absorb enough smart carts use Wi-Fi technology for exchange of information
electrical power for transmitting signals by harvesting RF read by RFID reader with the online cloud database which
power of receiver signals from their antenna that gets some allows some important data to be stored securely in the
energy from RFID reader or other sources [4]. The size of Internet. Smart carts do not need to exchange large data such as
passive RFID tags can be tiny so that they can be attached to digital documents, files, movies, etc. and therefore, they do not
market products [4]. Passive tags are a major concern of this occupy significant portion of available bandwidth. Therefore,
work. the exchange of information between a smart cart and market
Wi-Fi hotspot happens instantly.

C. Arduino
As the main processing unit of the Smart Cart hardware or
brain and heart of the smart cart, an Arduino platform with
Atmel microcontroller is used. The Arduino is an open-source
prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and
Fig. 3. The frequency spectrum of RF signals [4].
software [7]. With the help of Arduino board, people with
sufficient skills and knowledge can process input from
different sensors and output processed data into different
actuators, motors, displays or any other electrically controlled
device [7]. For this project, the Arduino Mega 2560 board
(illustrated in figure 5) with Atmel Atmega2560 8-bit AVR
microcontroller is chosen due to its robustness, the majority of
I/O pins and fast clocking rate [7]. However, Arduino boards
Fig. 4. An example of passive RFID tag/label used by Wal-Mart [4]. are only useful for prototyping and not for commercial product
design. At the project stage of designing final commercial
For instance, RF signals transmitted by RFID tags product, an industry standard microcontroller platform will be
operating in UHF and MW frequencies hardly penetrate water chosen, and original PCB layout will be designed.
containing bodies, thus, they work poorly near human tissue
[5]. However, the reading distance and data rate of these tags
are the largest [5]. On the other hand, LF and HF signals easily
penetrate water environments, but RFID tags transmitting in
these frequencies have lowest reading ranges and much less
data rates than UHF and MW systems [5]. However, 13.56
MHz HF RFID tags have pretty acceptable data rates and
reading distances and their signals easily penetrate humid
environments [5]. Moreover, this frequency band gained high Fig. 5. Arduino Mega 2560 board [7].
popularity and standardized in many countries [5]. There is a
wide variety of commercial RFID tags working in 13.56 MHz D. IBM Cloudant
frequency. Therefore, 13.56 MHz RFID tags and reader were
chosen in this paper. Differences between the RFID technology In this project, almost all data related to market items
and the existing system of barcode scanning are presented in and registered user accounts is stored in an online cloud
table 1 below. database named Cloudant developed by IBM. As the company
states, IBM Cloudant is a NoSQL database platform built for
TABLE I. COMPARISON OF BARCODE AND RFID TECHNOLOGIES the cloud, which can be used as a fully-managed DBaaS
Barcode scanners RFID readers
(DataBase as a Service) running on public cloud platforms [8].
The key factor for choosing this database is the fact that it has
Require close visual contact with Do not require visual contact, but
the bar-coded print. RFID tags must be brought to
RESTful API which allows easy access to the database from
any device, including Arduino based platforms [8]. This banking or other sources. Therefore, the smart cart user will
allowed the Smart cart hardware to retrieve from or put data acquire some virtual cash in his/her market account. The value
into the database by simply sending HTTP POST or PUT of this money and personal information along with purchase
messages over TCP protocol. Moreover, Cloudant offers free history will be stored in the Cloudant database. Market visitor
account which contributed to the successful development of can look at this information in the market website.
the project. Furthermore, Cloudant implemented secure After creating the account and putting some cash into it, the
connection based on SSL protocol which encrypts the visitor obtains a personal ID card provided by the market.
transmitted data so that it will not be stolen or retrieved by Then, the visitor switches on the smart cart, swipes this ID card
unauthorized persons. All data in Cloudant database is stored over it and authenticates himself in the Smart Cart System.
in JSON format [8]. After that, the visitor does shopping, chooses items with RFID
tags and swipes these tags over the RFID reader antenna of the
E. Similar projects smart cart. Therefore, smart cart gets unique ID codes of each
The idea of smart cart billing has gained a significant product lying inside it and transmits these codes to the
portion of interest among researchers which is proven by Cloudant database, after which, retrieves all information related
numerous existing articles on this topic. For instance, the to these items. Smart cart hardware shows the information such
article in reference [9] describes a similar project of Smart as item names and costs on its built-in OLED screen. The
customer looks into the display and can see the list of products
Cart and targets the same task of reducing queuing time in
lying inside the cart and all relevant information and total cost
markets. In that article, each product that lies in the smart cart
so that customer can make a better decision of what to
is scanned using RFID technology. The scanned information is purchase. Customer can easily remove an unwanted product
sent to main server database through wireless channels using out of the cart. However, it is expected that the customer will
ZigBee protocol. However, the embedded system in that manually delete the item from the list by selecting it and
article is different from the proposed project by its hardware pushing the “delete” button on the device. If the customer
implementation and in few mechanisms. The proposed project decides to finish purchasing and go billing, then he or she just
is more sophisticated in technology, hardware, and software presses the “pay” button on the smart cart which will send all
implementation. For example, the processing unit of purchased product information to the Cloudant database and
embedded system in the current project is Atmega2560 of will withdraw total cost from the personal cash of the user.
Arduino platform that is more robust, practical, low-power These items will be deleted from the product database so that
than the old 8051 platform used in the article [9]. Moreover, anti-theft security gates will not detect RFID tags attached to
there is a plenty of advancements in this project such as a purchased items. However, if an item, which is not yet
secure cloud database, fast data transmission over Wi-Fi purchased, is passed across security gates, a security staff will
protocol, original design of the casing, reliable and practical approach the user and instruct how to use the Smart Cart
payment option that will be discussed later. There is another system.
scientific research on the same field [10], in which the product A clear illustration of integration and
data is read using barcode scanner that is good regarding cost, intercommunication of three systems is shown in the block
workload and already established infrastructure but requires a diagram in figure 6. In this diagram, double-headed arrows
vision of the bar-code to scan. The bar-code scanner is built show that communication goes in both directions and single-
right into the smart cart. The amount of product is checked via headed arrow represents one directional communication. For
weight scanner, and data is transmitted to the base station via example, anti-theft gates only get information about the
ZigBee protocol, as in the first case. However, when the detected RFID tags from the Cloudant database while Smart
traditional bar-code scanner is used instead of RFID reader, it Cart hardware reads and updates information in the database.
imposes several difficulties both to the customer and the Since the Cloudant database is already developed by IBM and
market staff. Firstly, customers may face some issues when commercially available, it is not regarded as a part of the Smart
manually scanning bar-codes, since bar-codes may get Cart system but intensively used.
visually distorted. Secondly, market staff will lose certain item
tracking opportunities provided by RFID tags. Thirdly, bar-
code readers are more expensive than RFID readers, which
will significantly affect overall cost of the system when many
smart carts are used. Moreover, there is the possibility of
cheating of customers when they just put items into the smart
cart without passing them through the bar-code scanner.
Concerning this point, RFID technology is more secure
regarding cheating because each RFID tag in the market can
be tracked and unauthorized RFID tags (or unpaid products)
just cannot be passed through the anti-theft security gates of
supermarkets.
III. METHODOLOGY
In general, a market will have many Smart Carts that will
serve a swarm of visitors. All these Smart Carts connect to the Fig. 6. Block diagram of the entire system.
Internet through their Wi-Fi modules. Firstly, the market visitor
who intends to use Smart Cart system registers and creates an Moreover, there are some basic steps that customer should
account in the website provided by the market. After that, this do to accomplish the shopping process. A flowchart describing
person transfers some money into this account via internet what a customer is expected to do is illustrated in figure 7.
 B. Anti-theft RFID security gates
Whenever a new technology is introduced to the general
public, it often the case when someone tries to bypass security
measures and cheats. The Smart Cart system is very vulnerable
to such cheating actions of some dishonest users. In order to
remove this vulnerability and prevent cheating, anti-theft
security gates are used in the Smart Cart system. These gates
are commonly used in the libraries or book stores. For this
project, the manufacturer and model of security gates along
with the software that runs these devices are left for the
consideration of the market owners again. However, there are
some general requirements for the security gates: detect all
Fig. 7. Actions followed by the market visitor. 13.56MHz RFID tags passing through the gate; have
appropriate distance between two sides of the gate to let
A. The market website
visitors pass through them; have connection to a computer or
The main functions of the market website are: microcontroller which sends all read data of RFID tags to the
1. Provide convenient visual interface and user account Cloudant server and determines whether they exist in the
database; have appropriate alarm system which clearly notifies
2. Communicate with IBM Cloudant and retrieve user data market security staff. An example of anti-theft security gate is
3. Provide reliable money transfer from user bank accounts illustrated in figure 9 below. This security gate is the property
or web-money sources. of Nazarbayev University library.

4. Show actual money stored in the user account and provide

purchase history where purchased items are recorded for a
short (or long) period of time.
The development of the website is not performed during
this project, but it is left for market owners willing to use this
Smart Cart System. Therefore, supermarkets are free to design
their own website which will perform functions shown above.
This website will not directly communicate with the smart cart
hardware. Instead, it will retrieve the user cash balance and
purchase history from the Cloudant database by sending HTTP
GET requests. The RESTful API working in the Cloudant Fig. 9. Anti-theft security gate in Nazarbayev University library.
server will send back the required data in JSON format,
encapsulated in HTTP protocol. The block diagram shown in C. Smart Cart hardware
figure 8 below shows the communication procedure and Finally, in this section, the main focus of this project is
preliminary design of the user interface of the website. In this discussed in depth. To clearly describe the Smart Cart
block diagram, the user of the Smart Cart system is named hardware, this section was divided into several subsections.
“Yerlan Berdaliyev” which the name of the author of this 1) Hardware components
project. The name of the market is labeled as “market1”. The Smart Cart device involves a usual shopping cart with
an electronic hardware device mounted on its wall. The
electronic device consists of following components:
1. An Arduino Mega 2560 prototyping board, shown in figure
5 in chapter II
2. Espressif ESP-01 Wi-Fi module based on ESP8266 IC
illustrated in figure 10 below. This module transmits and
receives data in 2.4GHz with 802.11b/g/n protocol and
requires only 3.3V power source. In order to successfully use
this module with the Arduino board, it is required to upload
the latest firmware into its IC. This firmware is provided by
the Espressif company and newer versions are often released.
For this project, the firmware version v0.51 was uploaded into
the ESP-01 module. The communication between Arduino and
the Wi-Fi module was done in serial port with 115200 bps
Fig. 8. Actions followed by the market visitor. baud rate. Furthermore, Arduino microcontroller talks to
ESP8266 IC using “AT” commands developed by Espressif.
It can be seen that all data in the IBM Cloudant database is
stored in so called JSON format, which is a very convenient
way of representing structured key-value pairs. Firstly, the
website API sends the user ID (which is 6C92D391 in the
illustration above) in JSON format making HTTP GET request
to Cloudant website. Then, Cloudant RESTful API sends back
the stored information in JSON format as a response to GET
request. Therefore, all necessary shopping information is
shown in the market website. Fig. 10. ESP-01 Wi-Fi module.
3. Adafruit SSD1306 OLED display shown in figure 11 design layout was then etched by placing into Iron(III)
below. The resolution of this display is 128x64 and it requires chloride (FeCl3) solution. After some time, the PCB was ready
5V power supply. The communication is performed via I2C for soldering components onto its surface. The final
protocol. In Arduino 1.6.7 microcontroller programming appearance of the PCB is presented later in the Results
software (which will be discussed later), the Adafruit GFX chapter.
library provided by Adafruit GitHub page was used to 3) Programming the Arduino microcontroller
program this display and output necessary information. The microcontroller of the Smart Cart device requires
programming in order to perform given tasks. This is
accomplished using Arduino IDE 1.6.7 software provided in
the Arduino website. A popular programming language called
C++ was used in the Arduino IDE. Every Arduino program
includes two functions: setup() and loop(). In setup() function,
all global variables are initialized and all external devices are
Fig. 11. Adafruit SSD1306 OLED display
turned on and initialized, since this function runs only one
time during the startup of the Arduino. Moreover, some once
4. 13.56 MHz (HF) RFID reader model Elechouse NFC
performed tasks are also put into the setup() function.
Module V3 which is based on PN532 chip provided by NXP,
Therefore, all communications with the Wi-Fi, RFID reader,
shown in figure 12 below. Communication with this device is
display modules are initialized and set up in the setup()
also run through I2C protocol. An Arduino library for
function. On the other hand, loop() function contains
communication with PN532 chip was provided by Elechouse
commands or other nested functions that are repeated until
on its GitHub page.
Arduino is switched off or restarted. Therefore, all major tasks
are placed in there. In loop function, firstly, Arduino checks
the Wi-Fi connection, connection to the Cloudant server and
connects if unconnected. Then, Arduino requires the user to
authenticate and checks the ID card information by sending
HTTP GET request to the Cloudant server and obtaining user
information. After that, Arduino starts reading every RFID tag
Fig. 12. Elechouse NFC v3 module swiped over the RFID reader and exchange information with
5. 9V battery and battery holder fitting PP3-size 9V battery. the Cloudant server. The constant run of the program can be
6. Five standard 5mm x 5mm pushbuttons. interrupted when one of the five buttons are pressed. For
7.NXP BC556 PNP type bipolar junction transistor with instance, “up” or “down” buttons call buttonUp() or
hFe=125 current gain. buttonDown() functions which allow user to select an item
8. 500 Ohm resistor. which can be deleted by pressing “delete” button. When user
9. Power switch button. presses “pay” button, the buttonPay() function sends an HTTP
10. Four jumper wires. PUT message to Cloudant server which updates user
information on the database, subtracting total item price from
2) Design and development of the PCB the user cash and putting the purchased items in the purchase
As shown above, Smart Cart hardware is composed history. The final button is the “reset” button which restarts
of a number of electronic components. Initially, all these the device in case if failure occurs. There are plenty of other
components were set up on a breadboard and tested. In order functions in the program code which perform minor tasks such
to bring a neat look into the Smart Cart, all these parts are as connecting to the Wi-Fi module, sending proper AT
assembled and mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB). The commands, finding required data in the response string etc.
layout of this PCB is presented in figure 13 and it was drawn 4) Design of the case for the Smart Cart hardware
using computer software called Fritzing. Like any other electronic device, an appropriate
casing is needed to hold all components in one place, protect
them from external harm and give the device a neat look. The
casing for the Smart Cart hardware was designed using
Dassault Systemes SolidWorks 2015 software. This design is
presented in figures 14,15,16 below and it consists of two
major parts and minor details. The dimensions of the case
parts were determined in compliance with the dimensions of
Fig. 13. Layout of the PCB. Top view (left) and bottom view (right) the Arduino Mega 2560 board, PCB and other related
electronic components. The overall size of the casing was
This PCB was designed to be mounted on top of the Arduino reduced to the minimum.
Mega board, which significantly reduces the overall size of the
device. The layout includes copper wire tracks connecting
electrical components and holes on which they are set up and
soldered. However, the majority of the PCB area is covered
with copper fill. This was done for the purpose of speeding up
the etching process. The layout of the PCB was printed using a
laser printer on a white glossy paper. This layout was then
translated onto the surface of a double-sided FR-4/copper Fig. 14. The top part of the Smart Cart case. Isometric top view (left) and
board using electrical iron heater. This copper board with the isometric bottom view (right).
 quiet random noise during the device runtime. However, this
noise is not noticeable and is negligible.
B. Chassis
The manufactured result of the Smart Cart hardware
with outer casing is illustrated in figures 20 and 21 below. The
Fig. 15. The bottom part of the Smart Cart case. Isometric top view (left) and
casing was 3D printed in SLT format using ABS material.
isometric bottom view (right). This material is weaker and more brittle than plastic.
However, it can successfully provide proper casing for the
Smart Cart hardware and fix it in place. It can be observed that
the casing lacks holes for screws to assemble top and bottom
parts. Screws are avoided due to the weakness of ABS
material. If some force is applied to the ABS wall with screws,
whole wall structure can be collapsed. This is the main reason
Fig. 16. The minor details of the Smart Cart case: 5 buttons and 9V battery of avoiding screws. However, top and bottom parts can be
cover for the bottom surface. fixed properly by sticking them together with some glue.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. Printed Circuit Board
Photos of the PCB manufactured for this project are
presented in figures 17&18 below.

Fig. 19. The top view of the hardware assembly with outer casing.

Fig. 17. The top view of the hardware assembly and PCB.

Fig. 20. The bottom view of the hardware assembly with outer casing.

C. Results yielded by program code after uploading to

Arduino
The hardware was tested with several RFID tags and
Fig. 18. The bottom view of the hardware assembly and PCB.
the NU ID card of Yerlan Berdaliyev, who is the developer of
this project. The performance results of the Arduino code
In two figures above, one can note that the copper wire tracks uploaded into the Smart Cart microcontroller are clearly
on FR-4 board and copper fill as well as electric components shown in the table 2 below. There are a lot of stages from
and modules soldered on it. Due to the lack of proper powering on the hardware until the payment is completed. All
soldering equipment, some minor solder leaks were spread these stages are described in the table.
over the area of the PCB which significantly distorted the
TABLE II. TESTING OF THE PROGRAM CODE
esthetic appearance of the PCB.
Moreover, one can note the improper placement of Stage Results output on the Description of the stage
BJT transistor and a 500 Ohm resistor components on the edge # OLED display
1 The Arduino microcontroller
of the PCB. Initially, BJT transistor and resistor components is currently running the setup()
were not planned to be included in the hardware. However, function which initializes all
after the process of manufacturing the PCB and soldering global variables and sets up
components on it, it was noted that buzzer produces very quiet communications with the
modules.
noises when activated. Hence, it was decided to amplify the
buzzer output using a BJT. Since the remake and redesign of
the PCB takes a lot of time, it was decided to simply solder a 2 The Arduino microcontroller is
BJT and a resistor on top of the PCB surface. In order to communicating with the Wi-Fi
module and instructs it to connect to
isolate vulnerable connections near the BJT and the resistor, a a specific Wi-Fi access point.
glue was poured on exposed conductors.
After soldering out all electronic components, the device
was switched on and all modules were tested. All components
worked properly, except the fact that the buzzer produced very
 3 The Arduino microcontroller is The cost effectiveness is the extent of benefits
trying to connect to the IBM regarding money spent. The Smart Cart system is cost
Cloudant server. It simply instructs
the ESP-01 module to connect to IP effective in the long term because it needs infrastructure to be
184.173.163.133 on port 80 with the established. That is, RFID tags and readers are expected to get
TCP connection. cheaper and widespread in near future [4]. Therefore, in the
long term the value of benefits brought by Smart Cart system
4 The device is instructing user to will outperform its production costs.
swipe his/her ID card over the RFID
reader antenna. After reading the ID V. CONCLUSION
card, the Smart Cart sends the ID
code to Cloudant server and gets the To conclude, this paper is about designing and
user data in response. developing a Smart Cart system that will simplify shopping
experience of customers in supermarkets, reducing their
5 In this stage, the device is showing waiting time and reducing human swarms in front of cashiers.
some user data for 5 seconds, after RFID tracking is the key technology required for the
which, it will step into the next implementation of this project. Smart Cart system involves
stage.
effective communication between three separate systems: a
website, Smart Cart electronic hardware and anti-theft RFID
security gates. Main emphasis was made for the Smart Cart
hardware while other two systems were left for the
6 This stage is showing that the Smart consideration of market owners. Therefore, a detailed design
Cart device is ready to read RFID
tags which are swiped over the and development of the hardware was proposed and the
RFID reader. practical model was successfully manufactured. This project
proposes a novel approach in designing a Smart Cart system
which is intended to reduce billing time in supermarkets. It is
unique because it uses IBM Cloudant database for data storage
7 In this stage, the device already and retrieval, one of the cheapest Wi-Fi modules
recorded and obtained some data for
3 items. Item names are shown in
commercially available and a cheap RFID reader. Moreover,
the left and costs are presented in an original design of the casing and PCB was proposed, which
the right. Total cost of the items is contribute to the uniqueness of this project. Finally, the
shown in the bottom left corner and working principle of the entire system is different from all
the total number of items is shown
in the bottom right corner. First item
other similar projects presented in the literature review chapter
is selected. Arrow down shows that and it grants some flexibility in choice for market owners.
there is a third item which is hidden.
8 This photo is similar to previous REFERENCES
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The total fabrication cost was approximately $100, billing system through RFID and ZigBee”, International Conference On
excluding shopping cart. Smart Cart hardware can be easily INFORMATION COMMUNICATION EMBEDDED SYSTEMS,
pages 1–4, 2014.
attached on any shopping cart chosen by developers. This cost
[10] U. Gangwal, S. Roy, and J Bapat, “Smart shopping cart for automated
analysis is eligible only for the prototype device. However, if billing purpose using wireless sensor networks”, SENSORCOMM 2013:
the Smart Cart system is ideally developed and brought into The Seventh International Conference on Sensor Technologies and
the commercial stage, the cost of one piece will significantly Applications, 2013.
decrease since it will be mass produced.