CHENNAI: The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras’ Avishkar Hyperloop team on Friday unveiled their hyperloop pod, which will compete in the global competition being organised by SpaceX, the American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company, said a statement issued by the institute.
Avishkar Hyperloop is a student team from the Centre for Innovation (CFI), IIT-Madras, working on an indigenous design and development for building the first-ever self-propelled, completely autonomous hyperloop pod in the country. It is one of the top 21 teams out of 1,600-plus teams participating globally and the only Asian team to enter the finals of SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition 2019.
S R Chakravarthy, faculty advisor, Avishkar Hyperloop, and Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT-M, said, “The team has taken strenuous technical efforts at every stage, and has been quite professional about executing the project. This is an important milestone for the future transportation technology in our country.”
Hyperloop is the fifth mode of transportation, a high-speed train that travels in a near-vacuum tube. The reduced air resistance allows the capsule inside the tube to reach speeds of more than 1000 km/h.
Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, proposed the idea of hyperloop in 2013 through a white paper, ‘Hyperloop Alpha.’ His company organises the hyperloop pod competition to accelerate the development of functional prototypes and encourage student innovation.
Select teams build a sub-scale prototype to demonstrate the technical feasibility of various aspects of the hyperloop concept. In this global competition, the final round (testing and evaluation of the actual prototype) takes place at the SpaceX headquarters in California. The fastest pod wins the competition.