The Avishkar Hyperloop team of IIT Madras in collaboration with TuTr (a startup) has recently completed a 410-meter Hyperloop test track, the first such experiment in Hyperloop technology in India.
What is Hyperloop Technology?
- Concept: In 2013, the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, proposed a concept of ultra-high-speed rail (UHSR) called hyperloop and open-sourced it.
- Hyperloop: It is a high-speed transportation system in which pods, essentially pressurized vehicles, travel at extraordinary speeds through low-pressure tubes.
- The technology significantly builds on a much older idea variously known as “gravity vacuum tube,” “gravity vacuum transit,” or “high-speed tube transportation,” which dates originally back to 1865.
- Functioning: Hyperloop is essentially a magnetic levitation (maglev) train system that uses one set of magnets
to repel cars so that they hover above a track and another set of magnets to propel them forward over the track.
Advantages of Hyperloop Technology
- Reshapes Shipping and Logistics
- Speed
- Driverless
- On Demand Response
- Weatherproof
- Less Invasive
- Cutting Carbon Emissions
Issues with Hyperloop Technology
- Higher costs
- Evacuation a hyperloop difficult
- Evaluating a hyperloop difficult
