Building an autonomous future with what3words and Dronesmith Technologies

Technology is advancing at an incredible pace with individual innovators and developers playing an essential role in this process. Often, a breakthrough idea within a niche market of the technology sector can scale to provide solutions on a global level.

Dronesmith Technologies are paving the way for the aerial services of the future by providing optimised and efficient tools for drone developers and innovators. Their cloud-based drone command and control platform, Hangar, is designed to allow anyone to start building drone applications, without needing to be a specialised drone technologist.

Drones are usually directed from place to place using GPS coordinates. These are very accurate, but the complex strings of numbers are human-unfriendly and prone to error. Just programming in one wrong number can send a drone wildly off course.

Dronesmith have helped their users solve this problem by allowing them to integrate 3 word addresses into their projects via a plug-in. 3 word addresses are accurate to 3m x 3m and can be used to specify any location on the planet using just 3 words. With this system built in, drone take-off and landing points and also waypoints can be specified using simple 3 word addresses. This removes the complexity and risk of error associated with GPS coordinates, making drone technology more accessible to all.

“We integrated what3words into Hangar because it is a much more human way to communicate location” said Westin Conahan Director of Product at Dronesmith. “We wanted to make this option available for developers to integrate into their own applications.”

3 word addresses are also perfect for voice recognition, giving drones the potential to be commanded by voice alone, something that would be incredibly difficult and time-consuming using coordinates.