Oscar: the first device for managing a warehouse of articles able to visually recognise any label without the need of a barcode.
VH Technology srl invented and designed a device able to automatically identify products by recognising their label when the product passes in front of the device camera. It recognises the product by looking at the label as a human would do. Allowing automatic warehouse management without the need of a barcode, RFID or other types of specially designed labels.
This device uses sophisticated machine vision technology developed by VH Technology and is the first worldwide. A patent application has been filled. PCT application: PCT/EP2016/062247.
The idea was initially born to answer a specific need: Cellar management. Today it is mostly performed in a manual way since wine bottles do not necessarily have a barcode (or may have same barcode for different vintages) and applying RFID tag on each bottle is expensive and time consuming. Manual inventory is more prone to errors, therefore frequent cellar inventory is necessary which is tedious and time consuming. Moreover manual inventory is very ineffective in preventing frequent losses of valuable bottles.
Since our solution is well suited for cellar management VH Technology decided that the first device using this technology to be developed and launched on the market would target cellar management. At the same time VH Technology intends to apply this technology in multiple other fields.
VH Technology developed 4 prototypes which have been extensively tested and have demonstrated technical feasibility, ease of use as well as significant efficiency increase compared to cellar management.
Initial target: Restaurants, hotels, wine bars, wine shops, private wine collectors. To be extended to other labelled products.
Market: Worldwide.
Objectives phase 1: Detailed marked analysis to improve Oscar. Examine other applications/markets for our device.
Objectives phase 2: From Oscar prototype to final product development (design to manufacture).