APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATING INVENTORY AND AUTOMATIC INVENTORY SYSTEM AND METHOD

An apparatus for automating inventory procedures for items stored on shelves in a closed environment includes a mobile mechanical device having a movable appendage including a camera and additional sensory modalities. The camera and additional sensory modalities are used to position the movable appendage to take camera images of the items on the shelves from many different perspectives. Camera vision and the additional sensory modalities can be used to rotate, lower and raise movable appendage to position the appendage over and along the sides of the items on the shelf. The context of the mobile mechanical device is determined and edge AI computing retrieves AI context specific models based on the context. The AI context specific models may be downloaded from a cloud service. The edge AI computing uses the AI context specific models to identify and count the items on the shelf.