FR2602072A1 - DEVICE FOR RECORDING ARTICLES PURCHASED IN A STORE IN FREE SERVICE WITHOUT INTERVENTION OF AN OPERATOR. - Google Patents

Abstract

THE INVENTION CONCERNS TECHNIQUES FOR AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION OF ARTICLES PURCHASED FROM A SELF-SERVICE STORE. THE DEVICE OF THE INVENTION ESSENTIALLY CONSISTS OF TWO LATCHES (16, 20) PROVIDED ON EACH OTHER WITH A RECORDING COUNTER10 EQUIPPED WITH A PRODUCT CODE DETECTION DEVICE12. EVERY TIME AN ITEM IS REMOVED FROM THE TROLLEY PLACED ON THE ARRIVAL SCALE16, THE DEVICE DETERMINES THE CORRESPONDING WEIGHT REDUCTION. AFTER DETECTION OF THE PRODUCT CODE AND DETERMINATION OF THE CORRESPONDING WEIGHT STORED IN A MEMORY24, THE DEVICE COMPARES THE DECREASE IN THE WEIGHT OF THE TROLLEY WITH THE THEORETICAL WEIGHT OF THE ARTICLE. A DISCORDANCE IS IMMEDIATELY DETECTED AND CAUSES THE ACTIVATION OF A MONITORING DEVICE14. APPLICATION TO SUPERMARKET EQUIPMENT.

Description

The present invention relates generally to the recording of

  products purchased at a self-service store, and more specifically, relates to devices and methods for generally allowing for the recording of products purchased in supermarkets or similar stores without the intervention of an operator. Registration without the intervention of an operator of products purchased from supermarkets has an obvious advantage of reducing staff overhead costs and the possibility of reducing a customer's waiting time for registration. purchases, to the extent

  o Such a relatively automated recording can be done quickly.

  In recent decades, sophisticated devices and methods have been sought to reduce the need for employee participation in the registration of purchased products. The main objective in this regard has been to provide a technique that actually works despite the human propensity to fraud, that is, to thwart the device in place. Many attempts have been made in the prior art to attempt fraud or theft. One main route followed in the prior art is to measure a physical characteristic of selected articles for purchase, typically the individual or collective weight of these articles, and to compare this measured characteristic with a reference provided for that article. . In one embodiment of the prior art, the weight of items selected for purchase is measured collectively after individual treatment of them with identification of the articles. In a more modern embodiment of the prior art, product identification is made by means of detectable codes that are worn on the products. A computer memory indicates the weight of an article under the effect of detecting the code it bears. During the movement of

  conveyor carrying an article, the actual measured weight of the article is compared with the weight provided by the computer memory.

  If the comparison does not give a positive result, the movement of the conveyor is reversed and the product conveyed by the conveyor is returned to the customer. In other devices of the prior art which constitute the subjects of patent applications belonging to the applicant, various safety precautions are implemented, for example by providing a safety tunnel in which articles are placed for measurement. characteristics of the articles, for the purpose of comparison. In addition to the observation and comparison of the weight of the articles, these devices of the applicant perform a form identification and a redundant detection of article code inside the security tunnel. In these devices, the observation of the form can be effected by means of the light curtain which extends to the entrance of the security tunnel. The information that must be memorized with regard to the identification code,

  the weight and shape of the article may in fact be elaborated in the Applicant's devices from the code reading, weighing and shape detecting devices.

  In a further prior art technique implemented commercially in Reams stores in the state of Utah in the US, but apparently not the subject of a granted patent, a registration area is equipped with a counter with flip-flops in the floor on each side of the counter. The customer brings on one of the scales, which will be called the arrival detector rocker, a cart containing the items selected for purchase. An empty carriage is placed on the other flip-flop, which will be called the start detector rocker. Between the scales, the counter contains a reader or detector of universal product code (CPU). The customer individually takes the items from the carriage on the arrival detector rocker, passes them on the detector and places them in the

  carriage that is on the start detector rocker.

  It is believed that the operation of this device is based on obtaining the weight of a detected article, by means of a weight / product code correlation table unversel, recorded in a computer, and on the use of this weight provided by the computer to determine whether, for a given sensed article that is being transferred to the carriage on the start detector rocker, a rocker has a decrease in the collective weight of the articles and the other rocker has an increase in weight collective articles that match

the weight indicated by the computer.

  Although it is believed that the devices and methods of the Applicant's patent applications are effective in counteracting the human propensity for fraud, they are relatively complex and expensive and may be inapplicable for reasons of economy in some facilities. It appears that the technique using several flip-flops provides a simpler and less expensive method for use in such stores, to record in a general way without the intervention of an operator of selected items for purchase in supermarkets or Similar stores However, the plaintiff considers that it is necessary to improve this simpler and less expensive process, to improve the protection provided by the store managers and parents' associations for the benefit of the parents. use of such a method. The essential object of the invention is to provide simple and improved devices and methods for generally performing the registration of purchased products.

without the intervention of an operator.

  A more specific object of the invention is to carry out

  a selective and effective anti-fraud control in the registration systems of purchased items of the type to several bascu35 the.

  To effectively achieve the foregoing and other purposes, the invention provides a purchased item registration device comprising a plurality of flip-flops adjacent to a registration counter that includes a universal product code (CPU) detector. At the moment an article is removed from the carriage on the arrival detector rocker, the device of the invention immediately determines the decrease in weight which is associated with the removal of this article. After detecting the CPU of the article and obtaining its weight from a computer memory, the device compares the decrease in weight with the weight provided.

by the computer.

  In case of discrepancy between the weights compared, the device of the invention detects the discrepancy at the end of the detection operation and even before the movement of the article to the carriage which is on the starting detector rocker. A signal is generated at the detection of each discrepancy and the invention provides for the use of these signals to request the intervention of the store personnel, this intervention consisting in. less to monitor 1. Registration corridor considered. The device preferably comprises a monitoring unit incorporated in the recording counter, which is activated at the end of the detection of an article, in the case of such a discordance signal generation. This is a video recording of the events that follow the end of the detection of the article and the

  passage of the article in the carriage which is on the starting detector rocker.

  Because of the possibility of finding later that the discrepancy contemplated above is not fraudulent, as will be described hereinafter in detail, the method and device of the invention provide a characteristic that it can be considered as a "precautionary registration" or a pre-warning of an event that may be fraudulent, which may be of

  the presentation of the evidence to the guilty customer of a

  attempted fraud, if the discrepancy was fraudulent.

  Other features and advantages of the invention will be better understood upon reading the following detailed description of preferred embodiments, and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals are always used to designate elements of the invention. and in which: Figure 1 is a general block diagram of a device according to the invention; and Figure 2 is a detailed block diagram of a

  embodiment of the device of FIG.

  Referring to Fig. 1, there is shown an article registration counter 10 which includes a detection unit 12, which may be a usual universal product code (CPU) detector, and a corridor monitor 14 which can be constituted by a camera and a video recorder. On the left side of the counter 10 is a latch 16 installed in the SO (arrival detector latch), on which is placed a carriage 18 containing the items that a customer has selected for purchase. To the right of the counter 10 is another rocker 20 installed in the ground (starting detector rocker), on which is placed a carriage 22, which is initially empty, but which is intended to receive in succession items from the carriage 18 ,

  after detection by the detection unit 12.

  The detection unit 12 is connected to a CPU / weight memory 24 by lines 26 and 28 and to a control device 30 by lines 26 and 32. The flip-flop 16 is connected via line 34 to the control device 30. The corridor monitoring device 14 is connected to the device

  30 and 38. The flip-flop 20 is connected to the control device 30 via the line 40. Other connections of the device include a connection of the device.

  CPU / weight 24 to the controller 30 via line 42, and a connection of the controller 30 to the store monitor 44 through line 46.

  The system of Fig. 1 is intended for use with a single-lane check-in counter, but it can operate with other lanes, which are connected to the store monitor 44 by lines 46a and

46b represented in dotted lines.

  The operation of the device 10 of FIG. 1 will be better understood by considering the particular embodiment of the control device 30 which is shown on FIG.

Figure 2.

  In Fig. 2, the controller 30 has a configuration comprising enamble buffers 48 (receive latch buffer) receiving and recording the signal from line 34, 50 (buffer memory).

  weight corresponding to CPU code), receiving and recording the signal of line 42, 52 (sense buffer) receiving and recording the signal of line 32, and 54 (starting latch buffer memory), receiving and. Recording the signal from line 40.

  Initially, it would be useful to consider a correct series of activities at the check-in desk, that is to say the activities that take place in the case where a customer individually withdraws articles from the arrival trolley 18, detects the code that each article and place the article in the starting carriage 22, all this before removing another article of the carriage 18. The initial output information of the rocker 16, before the first article is removed 30 of the carriage 18, lies in the buffer 48, and it is applied to the line 56 and by the latter to the multiplexer 58. Because the line 60 is stable, that is to say does not undergo a change, the counter 62 is at count of zero, and it applies corresponding information to the multiplexer 58 35 by the line 64a. The multiplexer therefore transmits the content of

  the buffer memory 48 to the memory 66, by the line 68.

  Upon removal of an article from the carriage 18, the voltage value of the line 34 changes, based on the change of the output information of the flip-flop 16. The line 56 applies to the multiplexer 58, and also to the counter 62, through line 60, the output latch buffer output 48, which indicates the initial weight of the carriage 18, minus the weight of the removed article. Under the effect of the change of the signal on the line 56, the counter is incremented at its first count value, which is transmitted to the multiplexer 58 via the line 64b. The output signal of the buffer 48 is then applied selectively to the

  memory 70 through the output line 72 of the multiplexer.

  The contents of the memories 66 and 70 are applied to the subtraction circuit 78 by the lines 74 and 76. The indication of the first count value is applied by the line 80 to the circuit 78, after which a signal representative of the difference between the weights contained in the memories 66 and 70 are applied to the line 82, and therefore to the processor 84, which receives a second input signal from the line 86 of the weight buffer corresponding to the CPU code 50. cpde and a suitable delay to allow the stabilization of the data present on the line 86, the line 88 is activated so that the comparator compares its input signals from the lines 82 and 86. If this comparison gives a positive result, which indicates a correspondence of the weight indications of the two input signals, the counter 62 is restored to zero by a signal

  from the comparator 84 through line 90. The comparator output line 46 is not enabled because the events occurring during the recording correspond to those expected by the device.

  If the customer had simultaneously removed two articles of the carriage 16, instead of only one, the comparator 84 would then find a discrepancy between its input signals on the lines 82 and 86, the first exceeding the second, and

  it would activate line 46, to alert the store personnel or to activate the monitoring device 14, or to perform both actions. The signal from line 46 can also be used to reset counter 62.

  Similarly, in the case where the customer removes a second article from the carriage 18 before the comparator 84 validates the transaction relating to the first article, the counter 62 is incremented to its second count value, due to the associated disturbance of the state of the lines 34, 56 and 60. The counter 62 provides on the line 92 a signal indicating that it has reached the second count value, and this signal of the line 92 is used instead of

  signal from line 46 to alert the store personnel or to activate the monitoring device 14, or to accomplish both of these actibns.

  A second-level comparison between the flip-flop 16 and the weight corresponding to the CPU code on the one hand and the flip-flop 20 on the other hand can also be performed in the control device 30. In this case, when the article ei. When the individual code is transferred to the carriage 22, after the code has been detected, there is a change on the line 40 as well as on the output-line 94 of the buffer memory 54. The line 96 sends the comparator 98 the value of the weight of the buffer 54, and the line 100 directs the change indication to the comparator 98, and this comparator therefore compares the value present on the line 96 with the sum of the contents of the buffer memory 48 (arrival flip-flop ) and the contents of the buffer 50 (weight corresponding to the CPU code), which pro30 comes from the adder circuit 104 by the line 102, the input signals of the adder circuit being applied by

lines 106 and 108.

  When the comparison made by the comparator 98

  does not give a positive result, the comparator activates its output line 110 and thus the alarm device 112.

  It goes without saying that many modifications can be made to the embodiments described and shown without departing from the scope of the invention. The embodiment of Figure 2 is thus an example and should not be considered in a limiting manner.

Claims (7)

  1. Device for the registration of articles selected for purchase and bearing codes which can be detected which are representative of the nature of these articles, characterized in that it comprises: (a) means (18) for to keep articles selected for purchase and from which articles may be removed for processing; (b) first weighing means (16) for measuring the weight of items in the means (a) and providing an output signal representative of the measured weight; (c) detecting means (12) for detecting the article code and producing an output signal representative thereof; (d) storage means (24) for storing article weight information in correlation with an article code, and responsive to the output of the detecting means (12) for producing a read signal; representative output of the stored weight of an article; (e) means (22) for receiving and holding articles after detecting the codes carried by these articles; (f) second weighing means (20) for measuring the weight of items in the means (e) and producing an output signal representative of the measured weight; (g) control means (30) having the following functions: I. comparing the output signals of the means (c) and (d) and generating an output signal in the case where this comparison indicates a discrepancy , and II. comparing the output signals of the means (c), (d) and (f), and generating an output signal in case this comparison indicates a discrepancy; (h) recording means (14) for recording events which occur in the vicinity of the device in the event of occurrence of the output signal corresponding to the means (g) I; and (i) means (112) for generating a signal of   alarm output in case of appearance of the output signal corresponding to the means (g) II.   2. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that the means (a) and (e) are respectively constituted by first and second carriages (18, 22) provided for purchases, and in that the means (b) and (f) are respectively   constituted by first and second flip-flops (16, 20) on which the carriages (18, 22) can be placed separately.   3. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises an article registration counter (10) on which are mounted the detection means (12) and the recording means (14).   4. Device according to claim 3, characterized   in that the first and second latches (16, 20) are placed in the ground on either side of the registration counter (10) and in positions adjacent thereto.   5. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that the recording means (14) comprise a video recorder.   6. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that the control means comprise a counter (62) which controls the output signals of the first pe20 see means (16) and which is incremented in case of change of these signals, several memory units (66, 70), a multiplexer (58) which operates under the control of the counter so as to selectively transmit the output signals of the first weighing means (16) to the memory units (66, 70), a Signal subtraction circuit (78) connected to the memory units (66, 70) and operating under the counter (62) to provide an output signal representative of such subtraction, and a comparator (84) which receives the output signal of the subtraction circuit (78) and the output signal of the means (d), and which provides the output signal of the control means (g) I. 7. Device according to claim 6, characterized in that the counter (62) is also intended to trigger   itself the operation of the recording means (14).