ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846

Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 10(3), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2017/v10i3/108826, January 2017 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

An Elegant Shopping using Smart Trolley

B. N. Arathi* and M. Shona
Department of CSE, SVCE, Bangalore - 562157, Karnataka, India; aradvg@yahoo.com, sonasuresh04@gmail.com

Abstract
Objectives: In this paper a smart Trolley model is developed for an elegant shopping. Methods/Statistical Analysis:
Supermarkets are the places which will be crowded always especially in weekends. To manage these crowds various
technologies are used to support people coming for shopping. Even though some technologies are used, the main problem
faced by the people coming for shopping is getting jammed into a cashier line and getting frustrated. To overcome this
problem we propose a smart trolley system. This system is equipped with microcontroller, ARM processor, Bar code reader,
ultrasonic sensors, and android phone. A mobile phone with Wi-Fi connection is required for showing the information
about discounts, product prices, and the total updated bill. Findings: When the customer finishes his shopping he/she
can just pay the bill and leave, no need to wait in the queue. This smart trolley system will change the way of shopping
that people shop in traditional systems. Application/Improvements: This proposed system is mainly to save the time in
billing, it improves the operational efficiency of the system and it reduces number of staffs required.

Keywords: ARM Cortex Microcontroller, Bar Code Reader, Smartphone, Smart Trolley, UART

1. Introduction changes during the order process, for tax, shipping

etc. ii) too many steps to follow to order a product.iii)
In today’s era shopping involves some digitalised tech- Payment is done only by credit cards. iv) No warranty
nologies to comfort the customers. In traditional systems for the products will be given. v) Difficult to exchange
the shopkeepers promote their products using banners the products. vi) Quality& Right Product is one of the
or LCD displays, whereas in recent systems they try to main problem in shopping online.
promote their products price, offers, discounts in the In some existing systems1 trolleys are attached with
mobile phones. In this paper the shopping experience is the barcode readers which needs high implementation
enhanced by using a smart trolley system by increasing cost and the customers will not get the updated total
the interactive experience and make customers comfort- cost and product details and some use RFID technology2
able. which is too costly to be implemented for item level in
Shopping can be done either in-person or by online. super markets.
Even though in online shopping the time will be saved,
but the customer cannot be able to analyse the quality
of the product. Shopping in-person by visiting the shop, 2. Proposed System
selecting the products, and finally standing in a queue for In this paper we are using ARM Cortex Controller and
billing will take much time. The proposed system over- this is the heart of our paper. The different input and
comes these problems and makes the shopping process output devices are connected to the controller. From
faster and convenient. the input signal feed to the controller, the controller will
Nowadays people are more attracted towards online control the output device this is achieved by software pro-
shopping as they are more likely associated with price grammed to the micro controller. The proposed system is
attractiveness and time saving. The problems that are shown in the Figure 1. The software in the mobile scans
faced by customers in on-line shopping are: i) the Price the barcode of the product and connects wirelessly to the

*Author for correspondence

 An Elegant Shopping using Smart Trolley

shop PC and fetches the product details. The software also tion. The movement of trolley is controlled by the android
helps in controlling the trolley wheels by sending appro- device by sending signals to the microcontroller through
priate signals to the microcontroller. An obstacle detector Bluetooth6 is shown in the Figure 5. The Bluetooth device
is fixed in front of the trolley in order to avoid collisions, is externally interfaced to the microcontroller. The
which is again controlled by microcontroller. Bluetooth device sends signal to the microcontroller by
The ARM processor is programmed to update the serial communication.
billing information and also to calculate the total bill-
ing amount information.The flowchart for smart trolley
is shown in Figure 2. The information between micro-
controller and other devices in compliance with it are
exchanged serially bit by bit using UART. UART3 stands
for universal asynchronous receiver transmitter. It is a
hardware embedded in the microcontroller chip. This
UART is used for receiving and transmitting the signals
to other devices. It is mainly used for serial communica-
tion which is shown in the Figure 3.
When a customer enters into a supermarket, he
should first pick a smart trolley .Then after selecting each
product ,the barcode of each product should be scanned
by barcode reader. The information read from the barcode
reader is checked with the lookup table which consists
of the product list and its corresponding information like
product names, manufacture’s name and its price. If the
barcode information is matched with the lookup table ,
then the product name and its price will be displayed on
the LCD. In this system ARM processor4 is used and it is
programmed for calculating the billing information. This
updated billing information is sent to the stores’ server
and the customer also will get this billing information in
his mobile with the help of RS232 protocol.
Figure 2. Flowchart of Smart trolley with android application.

3. System Architecture
The design of smart trolley system consists of four main
things: hardware, software, database, and wireless commu-
nication. The block diagram of the smart trolley system is
shown in Figure 6. The system includes a microcontroller
with an LCD, barcode reader, a wireless card. Wi-Fi con-
Figure 1. Proposed System. nection is required to connect the android phone to the
barcode reader. The data from the barcode reader will be
LCD interfacing5,6 shown in the Figure 4 is done to sent to the ARM processor and the bill is calculated. This
the microcontroller for the testing purpose. The LCD billing7 information is then sent to the store’s server and
displays the information as soon as any movement to the the customer’s mobile. The customer can now pay the bill
trolley is made. The direction of the movement is also and he can leave the shop without waiting in the queue.
shown. The displayed information is made to standby for The movement of the trolley can be controlled by the DC
few seconds, so that user can see the displayed informa- motor8. Through mobile phone the signal is sent to the

2 Vol 10 (3) | January 2017 | www.indjst.org Indian Journal of Science and Technology
 B. N. Arathi and M. Shona

microcontroller to control the DC motor and thereby it

controls the wheels of the trolley.

Figure 5. Flowchart for Trolley movement.

Figure 3. Flowchart for Serial communication.

Figure 6. Block Diagram of Smart cart.

4. Implementation
• The application takes around 200 milliseconds to
scan the barcode.
Figure 4. LCD Interfacing. • Microcontroller:

Vol 10 (3) | January 2017 | www.indjst.org Indian Journal of Science and Technology 3
 An Elegant Shopping using Smart Trolley

• ROM- 64Kb ping by the customers. In future we can make the trolley
• RAM- 4Kb which follows the customers without need of control-
• Data Flash Memory- 8Kb ling it. The online bill payment method can be employed
• Power Supply- 5V to avoid paying bills in the counter. The smart trolley
• The application uses the android phone camera application is successfully designed for the product iden-
which should have auto focus facility. tification and to control the movement of trolley. It helps
• The application must be able to scan the barcode the supermarkets to cope up with the advancement in
even in low lights; hence the camera light/torch technology and save time of the customers.
should get on.
• Huge queue near the bill counter can be reduced.
• User can get information very easily like price of
6. References
product and expiry automatically. 1. ZBar bar code reader. Available from: http://zbar.source-
• Since time is precious we can save the customer forge.net. Date Accessed: 02/07/ 2011.
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Automated Billing using Wireless sensor N/W. The Seventh
Figure 7. Smat Trolley. International Conference on Sensor Technologies and
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As the technology and trend is changing in shopping, Technology. 2014 Sep; 3(9):1175–78.
smart trolley will become a very essential system in super 8. Kumar R, Krishna KG, Ramesha K. Intelligent Shopping
markets as it saves time without making the customers to Cart. International Journal of Engineering Science and
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reduces manpower and increases the efficiency of shop-

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