On Monday, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced that it had “exclusively licensed” a technology that could help it bring the transit system idea, popularized by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, to fruition.The licensed technology, called passive magnetic levitation, departs significantly from the system that Musk theorized back in 2013. Musk’s Hyperloop design involves a low-pressure tube through which the system's trains, floating an inch above the track on skis ejecting compressed air, are propelled with the help of a magnetic field created by electricity-fed magnets on the tube’s internal surface.
The HTT technology, on the other hand, is based on passive magnetic levitation, which relies on magnets placed on the underside of the passenger train in a Halbach array—an arrangement that focuses the magnetic field of a set of magnets on one side of the array while canceling out the field on the other side. Those magnetic fields under the train cause it to levitate as it passes over non-powered electromagnetic coils on the rail beneath the train at even low speeds created by an electric motor.
According to IEEE Spectrum, the repelling field created between the rails and the belly of the train is only achieved as the train starts moving forward—but the lift force of the repelling field can be maintained as the train accelerates.
The system was invented by Dr. Richard F. Post, who worked for the Lawrence Livermore National Labs until he died in 2015. HTT says it has worked with Post and his team for the last year to nail down how HTT will deploy the technology.
"Utilizing a passive levitation system will eliminate the need for power stations along the Hyperloop track, which makes this system the most suitable for the application and will keep construction costs low," Bibop Gresta, COO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, said in the company's press release. "From a safety aspect, the system has huge advantages, levitation occurs purely through movement, therefore if any type of power failure occurs, Hyperloop pods would continue to levitate and only after reaching minimal speeds touch the ground.”
A variety of organizations are currently racing to produce a working Hyperloop, which is expected to achieve speeds of 760mph, no matter which technology is used. HTT recently signed a deal to build a 5-mile, $100 million test track in California. The company is unique in that it relies on a great deal of volunteer time from engineers and others from NASA, Boeing, Tesla, and SpaceX.
Hyperloop Technology Inc (HTI), on the other hand, is a more traditional startup. HTI is planning a press event and announcement this week in Las Vegas, and French news outlets are already reporting that the French national rail system, SNCF, has inked a deal to provide $80 million in second-round funding to the Hyperloop company. HTI has not yet confirmed that deal to Ars, however.
Finally, 100 teams of student engineers have been engaged in a months-long competition to design pods to run in a Hyperloop test track in central Texas.