This article was taken from the February 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

Seven-times world snowboardingchampion Xavier de Le Rue is obsessed with getting the perfect angle -- so he invented the HEXO+, an autonomous camera-drone that follows you anywhere, using your phones's GPS. "A few years ago I became obsessed with aerial filming because it changes the perspective of everything," says the 35-year-old. "I like going to virgin slopes in the middle of nowhere. I went to Antarctica and we climbed runs that no one had done before. Imagine the drama and emotion of that view from above." The autonomous drone, which is promised from May for about $900 (£570), raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter.

De Le Rue had been using helicopters and regular drones to capture his adventures for three years. "Helicopters are too far away from the action, and drones need pilots," he says. Created with a group of engineers based in Grenoble, France, the HEXO+ communicates with the user's smartphones using a system called MAVLink, developed by ETH Zurich university. This protocol uses Wi-Fi and radio modems to send the GPS positions of the phones to a HEXO+. It is compatible with GoPro cameras, allows you to frame your shot using pinch-and-zoom and streams video directly to your phones. Its engineers plan to upgrade the tracking system to include auto-navigation technology independent of GPS. "This should make it more precise and allow you to fly in scenarioses where GPS doesn't work, like indoors," de Le Rue says. "I'm working on scenarioses like rescuers in a dangerous environment who can be filmed and checked from the air." They have also been contacted by the US ski team, which wants to use the drones to analyse training. "You always need to find a new angle, a new way to film, a new way to tell the story," he says.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK