SkyTran

SkyTran is a patented Personal Rapid Transit system first proposed by inventor Douglas Malewicki in 1990, and under development by UniModal Transport Solutions Inc. The idea proposes to use light-weight, two-passenger vehicles suspended from elevated passive magnetic levitation tracks. Malewicki predicts SkyTran could operate at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20010218143931/skytran.net/press/sciam04.htm "Maglev: A New Approach,"] Scientific American, January 2000.] No prototype of the SkyTran system has been built, though Inductrack, the proposed magnetic levitation system for SkyTran, has been tested by General Atomics with a full scale model. [http://www.llnl.gov/str/October04/Post.html Lawrence Livermore national Laboratory] ]

Critics of SkyTran say there are no known independent engineering analyses of the project, that Malewicki has no experience building large-scale civil engineering projects, and that UniModal has yet to produce any test projects nor signed any contracts to build the system. ["Traffic Thicket" by Laura Laughlin. Phoenix New Times. March 9, 2000.] Malewicki has blamed the project stalling on his distaste for the bureaucracy of government grant applications. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7D6163FF932A25755C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Tech 2010: #06 The Morning Glide; The Train You're Never Late For - New York Times ] ]

System details

The proposed system would use Inductrack passive magnetic levitation system. Passive maglev requires no direct power to levitate vehicles - rather, the lift is caused by the movement of the vehicle over the coiled wire in the track. The system is intended to have few moving parts, the main ones being the pod itself, its parking-wheels and door, and fans in heating and air conditioning units.Fact|date=June 2008 The promoters refer to the system as "solid state." [http://www.aerowebspace.com/AIAA/archives/SkyTran.pdf]

Malewicki proposes a 3D grid design that avoids intersections by allowing tracks to cross above or below each other. Tracks would be mounted on poles about 30 feet above the ground and would be made of modular steel components, attached to cemented foundations.Fact|date=June 2008

History

Malewicki conceived the SkyTran idea in 1990, filing a US patent application that year that was granted as US Patent #5108052 in 1992. He published several technical papers on SkyTran in the following years. In 1991, he presented a paper entitled "People Pods - Miniature Magnetic Levitation Vehicles for Personal Non-Stop Transportation" to the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Future Transportation Conference in Portland, Oregon. ["People Pods - Miniature Magnetic Levitation Vehicles for Personal Non-Stop Transportation" by Douglas J. Malewicki , AeroVisions, Inc, Irvine California, USA and Frank J. Baker, Monitoring Automation Systems, Irvine, California, USA June 1991] In 1999, he was invited to present an overview of the future of transportation for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Proceedings. His submission, rather than projecting the future, described "a retrospective of solid-state transportation systems" imagining the progress of the SkyTran invention from the perspective of the year 2052. [March 31, 2052: a retrospective of solid-state transportation systemsMalewicki, D.J.Proceedings of the IEEEVolume 87, Issue 4, Apr 1999 Page(s):680 - 687Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/5.752524Summary:The author discusses SkyTran, the personalized solid-state transportation (SST) system for the public. The author imagines that it is the year 2052 and he is looking back on the 50+ years which have seen a revolution in personal transportation. SkyTran is based on a MagLev monorail system with individual lightweight carriages travelling nonstop at 100 m.p.h. to the traveller's required destination. In this context the author considers; low-cost stations for efficient passenger handling; enhanced safety; cashless transactions; congested downtown station placement; vehicle mass production costs; failsafe operations; and SkyTran on the Moon's surface. [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel4/5/16251/00752524.pdf?arnumber=752524] ] In the same year, he also gave interviews to the industry magazines Industrial Design and EV World. [I. D. The International Design MagazineNovember 1999 "Future Transport"by David Pescovitz. Includes interview with Professor Jerry Schneider.] ["Interview with SkyTran Inventor and President Doug Malewicki (part 1)" by Bill Moore (Editor in Chief) EV World August 29, 1999. www.EVworld.com.] ["Interview with SkyTran Inventor and President Doug Malewicki (part 2)" by Bill Moore (Editor in Chief) EV World September 5, 1999. www.EVworld.com]

Once Malewicki and his partners began making proposals to transit systems, these proposals and their other efforts to publicize the idea began to be described in popular technology magazine and local and national news articles. ["Track to the Future"Reporter: Scott R. Gourley. Popular Mechanics May 1998.] ["SkyTran beats light rail, buses in cost, efficiency."Jerry Spellman, Mesa, AZ.Arizona Republic July 16, 1999] ["How do we go from here?" Jerry Spellman, Mesa, AZ. Arizona Tribune June 3, 1999.] [ Tech 2010: #06 [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7D6163FF932A25755C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all "The Morning Glide; The Train You're Never Late For"] , By PETER RICHMOND. _The New York Times Magazine_ Published: June 11, 2000.]

The 2008 energy shortages have stimulated interest in many Green vehicle proposals, including SkyTran. The cover of " [http://www.popsci.com/ Popular Science Magazine] " June, 2008 special issue on "The Future of the Environment", featured a SkyTran vehicle prominently in an artist's conception of a future energy-efficient city. "Maglev SkyTran" is one of the transportation proposals in the "Green Mega-City" plan, and its [http://www.popsci.com/futurecity/plan.html online version] included animations that present several SkyTran and Personal Rapid Transit ideas, such as passengers exiting and boarding at off-line elevated "portal" stops while high-speed traffic continues to speed by on its main line.

ee also

* Maglev train proposals
* Inductrack
* Transport
* Sustainable transport
* Green vehicle

References

* http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0808spellman,jerry.html

External links

* [http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/D329028.html US Patent D329028, "Monorail vehicle"] , filed June 12, 1990 and issued September 1, 1992.
* http://www.unimodal.com
* http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.skytran.net/ Archive of old SkyTran.net site