Panasonic started the system of face recognition for payment of goods in FamilyMart retail store

On April 3, 2019 the Panasonic Rus company reported that Panasonic and the Japanese network of the round-the-clock shops FamilyMart started the unusual project in Yokohama, the large city to the south from Tokyo. For payment of purchases in one of FamilyMart minimarkets here the automated system based on a sensing technology of persons is used now .

Having registered the photo and data of the bank card in a system, buyers can visit shop literally empty-handed. While they gather goods in a basket, will watch sensors and cameras them. Upon termination of shopping the person is enough to approach the special terminal and to look in a lens. A system recognizes him and will automatically charge money for purchases from the card.

The biometric system and sensing technology of images of Panasonic allow to identify users with a high accuracy even if their person is under an inclination, is partially closed or changed with age. The cameras and sensors which are built in in a ceiling of shop allow not only to monitor the movement of buyers (to build so-called "thermal cards", selecting ways of the movement of people and the most popular departments), but also to control a remaining balance of goods, if necessary notifying personnel that these or those names ended.

All this should lower load of employees and in the long term smooth negative effects of aging of the population in Japan which will inevitably lead to reduction of labor power.

The president of FamilyMart network Takasi Savada noted that such "practical" technologies will be implemented in the nearest future and in other shops of network.

Panasonic, in turn, considers innovations for retail (including, IoT, artificial intelligence, etc.) one of the important directions of business. The FamilyMart shop selected for start of "pilot" is located in close proximity to Panasonic factory and is controlled the company under the agreement of the franchisee. The staff of Panasonic became the first users of a system.