What if drones could be a tool for enhancing or enabling (new) sports and how could Sony play a role?
As odd as this question might sound at first, future technological advancement will likely make it possible. Drones are fast, agile flying robots, that are increasingly learning to understand their environment and interact autonomously with it, including other drones, humans and objects. These factors would allow for potential new use cases in the realm of sport, health and fitness.
SONY as the collaborating company of this project is driven by entertainment enabled through electronics and is in a process of re-inventing itself - looking beyond its normal business areas and models for new opportunities in all areas where technology is an enabler, specifically in artificial intelligence, robotics and Internet of things - all being fields related to drone technology.

The initial assignment of this project was to develop a feasible (within 2-7 years), profitable drone for Sony that enables its user(s) to experience a new sports activity or enhance/alter existing sports with it.

The design process was divided into three phases.
The first research phase elaborates on the proposed connection between Sports and the company Sony, next to exploring the status quo of drone technology and estimated developments, followed by suitable sports that would benefit from the integration of drone technology.

The second phase comprises the ideation phase that shows the creation and selecting process of different ideas around connecting drones to sport.

The third phase is about further detailing of one chosen concept including a business model for a profitable solution.

The project outcome is “Amari”, a multi-purpose, intelligent and autonomous drone enabling new sports and supporting existing ones. It can be a play partner, in existing sports, when no one else has time or support and enhance training sessions of professional sports e.g. long pass training in football or act as a team player in entirely new sports to be created. This project wasn’t primarily about envisioning new use-cases for Amari , but rather about designing the tool in form of a drone that could enable them.
The drone comes with its own App, that connects the owner to all services and controls. In the activity tab for example, the sport to be played with Amari can be chosen, new sports can be downloaded, settings can be changed and related information, such as progress and high scores can be viewed.
On the Amari website, new use cases and sports can be co-created together with SONY and people from all over the world. The play section connects people in a neighbourhood to play chosen sports with Amari.
Throughout the project it was shown that the idea of Amari is appealing to people and might be worthwhile for Sony to test and explore further.