A small Australian blockchain start-up is developing ‘proof-of-location’ blockchain technology that enables drones to be securely tracked and monitored.

Adelaide-based, Wright Technologies, says the ability to interfere with GPS is holding back the development of autonomous technology and it believes blockchain is the solution.

“With autonomy, as soon as you can start increasing the level of trust between different stakeholders you can start letting go of human interaction,” Wright Technologies CEO Kosta Canatselis told The Lead.

“Basically how Blockchain works is there is an immutable ledger where all the actions are recorded and you can start seeing things like a drone delivering something to a house, proving it has been to the house and then releasing payment and things like that.

“Proof-of-location is a problem that exists – there’s a few other companies trying to do it as well – but our big differentiator is that we are able to operate on resource constrained devices such as drones and small devices that other competitors out there aren’t able to do.”

This week the start-up’s technology will be on display in ‘Aerospace Valley’, a cluster of aerospace engineering firms and research centres in Toulouse, France.

“We’ve got some meetings scheduled with some big defence companies and we’re hoping to establish some networks in that Aerospace Valley in Toulouse so hopefully something comes out of it to help get the ball rolling,” said Mr. Canatselis.

“We’re working on being able to understand what device is where with absolute certainty with something called proof-of-location.”

Wright Technologies is hoping to undertake field trials of its blockchain drone tracking system by the end of this year.