Good morning from Korea!
I am a mechatronics engineering. I can design schematic and PCB for electronic parts. I also used raspberry for my project. Therefore, I think I have enough skills to sovle some the vending machine problems.
However, I do not know about the name or datasheet of IR sensor. In case, you did not choose sensor yet, I can recommend for you some IR sensors. According to sensor I can design schematic and PCB.
I also wonder about how many sensor you will use? You know, the numbers of GPIO pins on Raspberry have limmitation so we can not use too many sensors. This conflicts with vending machine which need many sensors for many goods.
I'm looking for your reply. Thank you.