Robomart to roll out driverless grocery store vehicles

Robomart announced a partnership with grocery store chain Stop & Shop to deploy driverless store vehicles in the Boston area this spring, the startup’s first planned deployment with a major retail customer.

The vehicles will be stocked with Stop & Shop inventory. Selections available on the vehicle will include pre-packaged meal kits, confectionary snacks and candy, and basic produce like fruits and vegetables, as well as other items often found in convenience stores.

Robomart wants its vehicles to someday be operated by an autonomous AI system, but vehicles planned for roads in the Boston area this spring will be teleoperated by a human from a remote location.

Once the driverless stores are available, shoppers will use their smartphone to hail a Robomart vehicle, and payments will automatically be deducted based on a system of sensors, cameras, and computer vision.

It may not seem much like Amazon Go on first glance, but the two have some things in common: Computer vision takes away the need for a cashier to be involved, and the inventory is strikingly similar.

Stop & Shop has 61,000 associates and 400 stores in the northeastern United States in places like Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.