Avishkar Hyperloop, a student team from IIT-Madras, will participate in the finals of Elon Musk’s International Hyperloop Pod Competition in July; it has great plans to build the first self-propelled hyperloop in India.
It is the only Indian team to enter into the final of International Hyperloop Pod Competition organised by Elon Musk’s Space X. There are 1,600 teams participated in the first round. After several rounds, only 22 teams are shortlisted for the finals.
Hyperloop is being hailed as the fifth mode of transportation that can move people and freight quickly. Passengers or cargos are loaded into the hyperloop pod and accelerated gradually using electric propulsion through a low-pressure (vacuum) tube.
The prototype pod built by the IIT-M students is likely to achieve 400 to 450 km/h during the finals at Los Angeles in the US.
“Ours is the only Indian team to qualify for the finals. Rest of the teams is from Europe and US,” said Pranit Mehta, head, marketing and sponsorship programme, Avishkar Loop.
“We need to build a fully functional prototype vehicle. The twenty-two teams that would take part in finals need to take their prototype pods and run it through the vacuum tube at the Space X’s headquarters in California,” he added.
The travel in hyperloop can dramatically reduce the travel time between the cities.
“We are working on technologies like Magnetic Levitation and Linear Induction Motors, which can help reduce inter-city travel times drastically. For instance, Chennai – Bangalore travel time would just take 25 minutes via hyperloop instead of five hours through a train,” said Suyash Singh, a PG student and head of Avishkar Hyperloop team.
He further said it would be convenient, affordable and environmentally friendly. For the competition, the students aim to achieve speeds over 400 to 450 km per hour in a distance of approximately 1.5 km.
Suyash Singh described the funding as one of the major issue faced by the student team during the design and development of the pod.
