Arrow Electronics is working with wheelchair tennis player Dani Caverzaschi to design a navigation system to help people with mobility difficulties find their way round cities.

The Data Analytics & Network Innovation (Dani) project is helping improve the lives of wheelchair users and those with limited mobility. Arrow unveiled the project at ChangeNow, a three-day summit in Paris last week that brought together visionaries and innovators to share their ideas to protect the planet and make life more sustainable.

At the centre of the Dani project is 28-year-old Caverzaschi, who was born missing most of his right leg and having several malformations on his left one. He plays on the International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) Wheelchair Tennis Tour and will be competing, for the first time, at the second Grand Slam event of the year, next week’s Roland-Garros. He also formed part of the Spanish national team that finished second, for the second time in a row, in the World Cup in Vilamoura, Portugal.

Arrow and Caverzaschi are collaborating on two technologies to improve the lives of wheelchair users and those with disabilities:

• WheelWay, a navigation system designed for anyone with limited mobility, helping to overcome mobility-related issues around cities; and
• DataRally, live, real-time data, sourced from sensors on an athlete’s wheelchair, equipment and body, enabling them to analyse, refine and improve competitive performance.

Expanding on Arrow’s expertise, the two initiatives demonstrate ways of approaching mobility in an integrated way and feature technologies that combine hardware and software, cloud architecture and analytics to collect and analyse data. The data are specifically relevant to the needs of those in a wheelchair or with limited mobility.

WheelWay focuses on what’s possible’ rather than obstacles, enabling wheelchair users to plan journeys and discover the city around them. Routing instructions combine live data from smart GPS and public open cloud services, to provide real-time mobility-friendly routing information.

The second initiative, DataRally, is designed for professional wheelchair athletes to improve performance and help gain a competitive edge. Until now, Caverzaschi had to rely on feel and intuition to analyse his game. Now, using sensors on his wheelchair, tennis racquet and a wearable device on his wrist, DataRally enables him and his coach to collect and analyse real-time data from every match and training session, and establish precise areas of his game on which to work.

The technology can be adapted to measure speed, acceleration, distance covered, impacts, number of turns, heart rate, service speed, ball placement on the racquet and more.

“These don’t take over; they’re not making me more dependent,” said Caverzaschi. “I generate the data, which are then analysed. The information then comes back to me, via the apps, enabling me to make informed decisions. I decide where to go and what to do. I decide how to adjust on the court. It’s giving me more choice; more freedom and opportunity.”

Dani is an edge computing project that brings computation and data storage closer to the source of data, in this case Caverzaschi. Each technology is being developed by members of Arrow’s graduate programme; young employees who are digital natives in their 20s.