In May 2019, I began working as the Industrial Design Lead on the wearable technology subsection of Nokia Bell Labs' collaboration with Alex Thomson Racing. I led the design of the ATR Armband, a smart wearable built to monitor the elite sailor's biometrics in the most grueling of conditions.
This collaboration took me through the full product development cycle, from leading early brainstorming sessions between the racing team and Bell Labs researchers, through to research and concept exploration, and all the way through to production and validation of deliverables.
Hardware Design Lead, User Experience Research, Running Stakeholder Workshops, User Testing, Electronic Prototyping, Model Making, Soft Goods Fabrication
May 2019 - Sept 2020
British sailor Alex Thomson is one of the world’s most accomplished solo offshore sailors. Competing in the high speed, extreme IMOCA 60 class, Thomson has broken multiple records and achieved countless accolades throughout his decorated career to date. Nokia Bell Labs partnered with Alex as he aimed to become the first British sailor ever to win the iconic Vendée Globe race.
One of the toughest sporting challenges in the world, the Vendée Globe is a 24,000 mile solo, non-stop unassisted race around the world. The challenge sees skippers battle through vast, unpredictable waters and brutal conditions, with winds up to 70mph and mountainous waves. When the race reaches the depths of the Southern Ocean and skippers pass Point Nemo, they find themselves closer to the International Space Station than any being on earth, making communications capabilities crucial and emergency rescue virtually impossible.
Due to the exertive nature of these races combined with their lengthy duration (~ 80-120 days), Alex found he had little awareness of how long he slept, the quality of it, or if he slept at all. Every moment spent awake and not idle gives skippers that bit more of a competitive advantage. Combined with the unpredictability and severity of the conditions, Alex would often find himself staying awake for as long as physically possible.
When he did inevitably fall asleep due to extreme exhaustion, he would have great difficulty waking himself from it. This could result in disastrous consequences, such as during the Route du Rhum race, when the biggest win of Alex’s career was snatched away from him after he failed to wake from a power nap whilst in the lead, and he crashed into the cliffs off the Caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe. It cost him the race, but he was fortunate in that it could potentially have been fatal.
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I ran the initial workshop in May 2019 to kick off the partnership between the Alex Thomson Racing team, and the various Bell Labs departments involved in the Sensing Alex project. My own mission was to align all parties towards the same goals: The Bell Labs researchers had come with recommendations on every technological solutions that could be implemented, and the ATR team had their minds set on what they believed Alex needed. Rather than being feature focused, I used this and ensuing workshops as an opportunity to establish what truly concerned Alex: his worries, pain points, motivations, thought process, and behavior. From there, I lead the workshop to discuss how might we design for these constraints, and what the hardware implications of these might be.
This was an early highlight in the Alex Thomson project, as this human centered approach was eye opening to both ATR and Bell Labs, with the head for product innovation at Bell Labs remarking "nobody in Bell Labs would have thought to ask the kind of questions you did".
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It was evident that a solution needed to be developed to allow Alex to better understand himself, and from there to give guidance on how best to manage himself in relation to his sleep and rest. By measuring his biometrics along with his activity, a system was designed that gave Alex real-time data on his sleep patterns, energy levels and physiological stress, telling him when he really needed to rest.
To gather this data, a bespoke wearable solution needed to be developed. Conventional wearables weren't suitable for Alex: the standard device battery life of commercial products were too short (~10 hours), and the comfort and durability of most devices were not built for continued wear over multiple days in saline environments.
The quick release clasp allowed Alex to adjust the band and remove it at quick notice, while the fabric hood increased comfort in this area
An augmented Battery life (~25 days) meant less charging or swapping of devices for Alex
Alex's biometrics are constantly monitored via the band's optical heart rate monitor, sitting flush against his skin
The electronic components are sealed in a rubber housing, wrapped in a fabric exterior, to weather the extreme saline conditions
The IMU monitors Alex's movement and activity, which is calculated against the ship's own movement to reveal the true values
Alex can blindly feed a charge cable down his jacket sleeve to connect to a magnetic connector, allowing him to charge the device on his body
Silicone elastic grips were woven into the band fabric to prevent the sensor slipping down the arm
