Cheerful Googly-Eyed Autonomous Robot Wearing a Christmas ‘Sweater’ Patrols New Jersey Grocery Store

While visiting a Stop and Shop in Bayonne, NJ, I came across Marty, a cheerful googly-eyed autonomous robot wearing a Christmas “sweater” while patrolling the grocery store. A fleet of these robots, made by Badger Technologies, was deployed to over 500 grocery stores in the US in 2019.

Badger Technologies’ fully autonomous robot has been initially developed for the grocery retail environment to address out-of-stock, planogram compliance, price integrity, and audit and compliance issues. Retailers gain actionable data and analytics that provide a corporate view across stores.

This is the 2nd autonomous robot I’ve come across in public this year. While visiting San Francisco, we encountered a security robot patrolling the sidewalk around a building.