InnovationLab announced its "smart mat," a sensor-based distance-control floor mat that helps to ensure social distancing in retail outlets.

Leveraging InnovationLab's field-proven capacity to print roll-to-roll electronics, the smart mat demonstrator uses a sensor array to control a traffic light-style indicator which detects when a shopper stands on it. In a simple use case, the smart mat displays a red light when a person is standing on the mat, and green when no one is there, signaling that the next customer can proceed.

The intelligent sensor matrix embedded in the smart mat features more than 8,000 individual sensors spaced at 1 cm intervals, which enables differentiation between human steps and the wheels of a grocery cart, for example.

In addition to promoting safe social distancing in a retail environment, the smart mat platform could be further customized to analyze in-store traffic. InnovationLab is already working with industry leader SAP, making it easier to integrate the sensor data with existing retail IT systems and gain new insights on customer behavior.

InnovationLab is now demonstrating its smart mat in a retail store in Heidelberg, Germany.

For more information, visit: https://www.innovationlab.de