Technology has recently been developed which offers an excellent opportunity to design systems with the ability to help people\nin their own houses. In particular, assisting elderly people in their environments is something that can significantly improve their\nquality of life. However, helping elderly people outside their usual environment is also necessary, to help them to carry out daily\ntasks like shopping. In this paper we present a person-following shopping cart assistance robot, capable of helping elderly people\nto carry products in a supermarket. First of all, the paper presents a survey of related systems that perform this task, using different\napproaches, such as attachable modules and computer vision. After that, the paper describes in detail the proposed system and its\nmain features. The cart uses ultrasonic sensors and radio signals to provide a simple and effective person localization and following\nmethod.Moreover, the cart can be connected to a portable device like a smartphone or tablet, thus providing ease of use to the end\nuser.The prototype has been tested in a grocery store, while simulations have been done to analyse its scalability in larger spaces\nwhere multiple robots could coexist.
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