MOTORIZED CART RETRIEVER FOR MONITORING CART STATUS

A motorized cart retriever, which may be a cart pusher or a cart puller, can apply a force to a nest of human-propelled, wheeled carts to facilitate retrieval of the carts. The cart retriever can include a transceiver configured to wirelessly receive cart status information from cart transmitters of the wheeled carts and wirelessly report event data to a control unit. The cart status information may include an identification of the cart transmitter, a location of the cart, a lock or unlock status of a cart wheel, a misuse condition, etc. The event data can include the cart status information, a number of wheeled carts being retrieved, etc. The cart wheel may include a brake. The transceiver may communicate a message to the cart wheel to keep the brake unactuated during retrieval. The control unit may analyze the event data to detect traffic patterns of the carts.