Follow-Me Shopping Cart: From Trolleys to ABB AMRs

Pushing a loaded trolley around a supermarket or an airport terminal is one of those small chores almost nobody enjoys. A follow-me shopping cart takes that job off your hands. It rolls behind you, keeps pace and stops when you stop. This post looks at where the idea came from: folding chairs on wheels in 1930s Oklahoma, luggage trolleys at Schiphol, the first robot carts that tracked their owners. It then covers the smart trolleys and airport robots being tested this year, and how ABB's autonomous mobile robots could fit into this kind of work.

A Piaggio gita cargo robot follows a presenter across the stage at the Collision conference in New Orleans, 2018. Photo: Collision Conf / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

How shopping carts and airport trolleys were pushed by hand

The shopping cart has a well documented birthday. In 1937 Sylvan Goldman, who owned the Humpty Dumpty grocery chain in Oklahoma City, noticed that shoppers stopped buying once their hand baskets got heavy. He and a mechanic, Fred Young, fixed wheels and two wire baskets to a folding chair frame. Shoppers were slow to take to it at first, so Goldman paid people to walk around his stores pushing carts until others followed. Within a few years the folding basket carrier had spread across American supermarkets, and bigger carts meant bigger shops.

Two shoppers push wire carts down a supermarket aisle in the United States, 1989. Photo: Bill Branson / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Airports went through a similar change a few decades later. Porters used to carry bags from the kerb to the check-in desk for a tip. As air travel grew in the 1960s and 1970s, airports put free luggage trolleys in the terminals instead. A 1976 photo from Schiphol in Amsterdam, shown below, records the moment: the porters had gone and travellers were pushing trolleys the airport provided. Pushing your own bags has been part of flying ever since.

Luggage trolleys provided by Schiphol airport after the porters disappeared, Amsterdam, 1976. Photo: Rob Mieremet / Anefo, Nationaal Archief via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The first carts that followed their owners came from small robotics firms. In 2013 Five Elements Robotics of New Jersey showed Budgee, a 20 lb robot that could carry about 50 lb and followed an ultrasonic beacon its owner kept in a pocket. It sold for $1,399. The company later said Walmart was evaluating a prototype robot cart called Dash that could guide shoppers to products. In 2017 Piaggio Fast Forward, part of the Vespa maker's group, unveiled gita, a two wheeled cargo robot that pairs with its owner and follows on foot.

The gita robot, unveiled by Piaggio Fast Forward in 2017, trails its owner on stage at Collision 2018. Photo: Collision Conf / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Smart trolleys and airport robots in 2026

In Britain the trolley got smarter this summer. On 29 July 2026 Morrisons started a trial of about 30 Caper Carts, made by Instacart, at its Riversway store in Preston. Each one has cameras, built in scales and a touchscreen, so it recognises items as they go in and keeps a running total. When the Guardian visited on 25 August, shoppers told it the carts make life much easier. The trial runs for three months. These carts still need a push, but they already carry the sensors and computing that a self driving cart would need.

Shoppers with ordinary wire carts at the produce shelves of a supermarket near Tokyo, 2018. Photo: Nesnad / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Airports have moved further. KLM tested Care-E, a smart trolley that scanned a boarding pass, held up to 85 lb of luggage and followed passengers to the gate at about 3 mph, at New York JFK and San Francisco in the summer of 2018. Incheon Airport in Seoul runs an Air Porter robot that can follow travellers or lead the way. On 22 September 2026 Gulf News reported that Emirates plans to launch robots in the first quarter of 2027 that recognise passengers by face, weigh and tag their bags and then carry them away.

A robot helps travellers in the duty free area of Incheon International Airport, South Korea, 2021. Photo: Sharon Hahn Darlin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

ABB does not make a follow-me shopping cart, and we know of no ABB project in a store or an airport doing this. Its mobile robots do solve a close cousin of the problem. The Flexley Mover P603 and P604 are autonomous mobile robots that find their way with Visual SLAM, building a map from camera images instead of following magnetic tape or reflectors. They carry carts, racks and pallets through factories and warehouses and steer around people. Following a person is a different trick from driving to a mapped station, but the navigation and safety sensors are the same kind of hardware.

An ABB Flexley Mover P603 AMR, which navigates with AI based Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

Where follow-me carts could go next

For shops the next step is probably a hybrid. A cart that recognises what you put in it could also drive itself back to the trolley bay, or come to the car park when you call it. In factories the follow-me idea already makes sense for pickers who walk long routes with a cart, and AMRs that tag along with an operator are an obvious extension of today's fleets. We have looked at the same pattern for golf in our post on the follow-me golf caddy, where electric trolleys have tracked players for years.

An ABB Flexley Mover P603 carrying crates. Photo: ABB

Homes are a harder case. A robot that carries shopping from the car to the kitchen, or laundry up from the basement, has to cope with doorsteps, narrow hallways, pets and stairs. Gita showed that people will try such a machine, but it cost several thousand dollars and stayed a niche product. Cheaper cameras and better person tracking will help. A home cart will still have to prove it is safe around children and older people, who are the users who would gain most from not carrying loads.

Two wheeled shopping trolleys for carrying groceries home, in a shop window in Spain, 2018. Photo: Alzinous / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The open problems are the same for all of them. Follow-me carts have to share busy aisles and terminals with people who do not expect a machine at their heels, so they must stop gently and never push. They cost far more than a steel trolley that lasts decades, and stores already lose carts to theft. Staff need to fix them and fleets need managing. In industry, ABB programs its AMRs with its AMR Studio software, and arm and mobile cells are usually planned first in RobotStudio. A shop or airport fleet would need tools that are just as easy to use.

The ABB Flexley Mover P604, which navigates with 3D Visual SLAM. Photo: ABB

Innovation

AI solutions for effortless ABB robot control.

Automation

Robotics

ceojohntran@chatwithrobot.net

+84905311611

© 2025. All rights reserved.

qtran1215@gmail.com