IITM student team qualifies for European Hyperloop Week

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, team Avishkar of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras manufactured a hyperloop prototype pod and will project it in the European Hyperloop Week, which is scheduled to be held in Spain, from July 19 to July 25, 2021. The 40-member team will participate in the contest virtually.  

Team Avishkar has been working on the first-ever self-propelled and completely autonomous hyperloop pod in India, which will enable high-speed transportation, for the past few months.  

What is hyperloop? 

Hyperloop is the fifth mode of transportation, a high-speed train/pod 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 per hour. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, proposed the idea of hyperloop to the world in 2013 through a white paper – ‘Hyperloop Alpha’.

Bengaluru to Chennai in 30 minutes?

The team is planning a test hyperloop corridor between Bengaluru and Chennai to reduce travel time between the two cities from six hours to 30 minutes. The team is working on a detailed study of energy, costs, demand and other business aspects for a hyperloop corridor between Bangalore and Chennai to assess the economic feasibility of hyperloop in India.

Hyperloop design entered SpaceX finals in 2019 

Avishkar is the only Asian team to enter the final of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition held in Los Angeles on July 21, 2019. The team aims to develop technologies for future modes of high-speed transportation with applications in various fields, including defence, logistics and aerospace industry. 

All about European Hyperloop Week 

More than a competition, the European Hyperloop Week is a confluence of student teams, start-ups and companies working in the hyperloop domain. It will act as a boiling pot for discussions on the reliability, scalability, and feasibility of this future technology. The competition is being organised by four European student teams in partnership with companies such as Virgin Hyperloop and AECOM.  

Research focuses on reducing cost of infrastructure 

Kishan Thakkar, team Avishkar lead and fourth-year student, Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, IIT Madras, said, “Creating infrastructure such as tubes and pylons take about 70 per cent of the total budget of a hyperloop corridor. Our research is focused mainly on reducing the cost of this infrastructure and adapting the hyperloop to the needs of the Indian subcontinent. The team is truly pushing the frontiers of this technology to bring a sustainable future.” 

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