What is hyperloop and what is the technology involve In it?

What is Hyperloop?

 Hyperloop system is all about removing the two things that slow down regular vehicles: friction and air resistance. The floating pod, which races along inside giant low-pressure tubes, either above or below ground, carrying passengers, will travel through pipes and tunnels from which most of the air has been removed to reduce friction, enabling the pods to travel at such a high speed.

The working mechanism of hyperloop?

The basic idea of Hyperloop is that the passenger pods or capsules travel through a tube, either above or below ground. Most -- but not all -- of the air is removed from the boxes by pumps to reduce friction.

Overcoming air resistance is one of the most important uses of energy in high-speed travel. Airliners climb to high altitudes to travel through less dense air; to create a similar effect at ground level, Hyperloop encloses the capsules in a reduced-pressure tube, effectively allowing the trains to travel at airplane speeds while still on the ground.

The Hyperloop capsules float above the tube's surface on a set of 28 air-bearing skis, similar to how the puck floats just above the table on an air hockey game. One significant difference is that the pod, not the track, generates the air cushion to keep the tube as cheap and straightforward as possible. Other versions of Hyperloop use magnetic levitation rather than air skis to keep the passenger pods above the tracks.

The pod would get its initial velocity from an external linear electric motor, which would accelerate it to 'high subsonic speed and then give it a boost every 70 miles or so; in between, the pod would coast along in a near-vacuum. Each capsule could carry 28 passengers (other versions aim to carry up to 40) plus some luggage; another version of the pods could carry cargo and vehicles. Pods would depart every two minutes (or every 30 seconds at peak usage).

How would Hyperloop be powered?

The pods will get their velocity from an external linear electric motor -- effectively a round induction motor. The Hyperloop would be powered by solar panels placed on the top of the tube, allowing the system to generate more energy than it needs to run.

Will Hyperloop be a success?

That's the vast, multibillion-dollar -- and, as yet, unanswered -- question around Hyperloop. The concept has been around for a long time, but the technology has been lacking until now. This time around, it's possible that the technology may have just caught up with the concept. 

Well-funded companies are racing to be the first to deliver a working service but, despite their optimistic timescales, these projects are still very much in the pilot and experimental stages. Going from short test routes to hundreds of kilometers of the track is a big jump that none of these firms has made yet. 

If the technology is still in development, the business models to support it are also very accurate. The success of Hyperloop will vary depending on the destinations, local economics, and geography. Trying to build a new line overland across England, for example, can prove an expensive and complicated business that can take many years (as the ongoing HS2 controversy has shown).  In other countries where land is cheaper, or routes can travel through less populated areas, it may be easier to get services up and run faster.  

Capacity is another issue. It's not clear that Hyperloop can do a better job of moving many people than other mass transit options. Critics argue that many pods will be required to achieve the same passenger numbers as more traditional rail, which uses much bigger carriages. And there are many engineering hurdles to overcome, like building the tubes strong enough to deal with the stresses of carrying the high-speed pods and finding energy- and cost-efficient ways to keep them operating at low pressure. 

Moving from a successful test to a full commercial deployment is a big jump, and passenger trials are still to come. Assuming that consumers are happy being zoomed around in these tubes, finding the right price for the service will be vital, too.

Hyperloop is currently at an experimental stage, even if the companies involved are very keen to talk about its potential.

Which companies are working on hyperloop?

Since Musk's hyperloop manifesto five years ago, several companies have sprung up in earnest to commercialize the idea:

• Virgin Hyperloop One: Perhaps the most prominent team working on the concept is the group at Hyperloop One, which has been toiling away on bringing hyperloop into reality since 2014 and is now backed by the Virgin brand. Thanks to an investment from Richard Branson. ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic interviewed Virgin Hyperloop One CEO Rob Lloyd at CES 2018 about the company's roadmap to bring hyperloop into reality in the next several years.

• Hyperloop Transportation Technologies: The other company that is the furthest in bringing hyperloop to market is HTT, which has been working on it since the end of 2013. It takes more of an open-source approach, with several engineers contributing time to the effort while still holding down other day jobs. It's been working on potential routes in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and it's even toyed with the idea of smaller, slower hyperloop in big cities that ease commutes and could potentially deliver passengers faster to the big, fast loops.
• SpaceX: After initially putting the idea into the public because he said his companies didn't have time to work on it, Elon Musk has since spun up a Hyperloop division within SpaceX. While it's playing from behind, SpaceX has successfully launched a series of Hyperloop competitions to overcome some of the concept's challenges. For 2018, they are running a Hyperloop Pod Competition, for example.

• ET3 Global Alliance: Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies (ET3) is taking a different--and longer-term--approach to vacuum tube travel. It wants to create a network of smaller capsules that can travel at about 375 mph. Think of it as a hyperloop-powered superhighway full of automated tablets. It claims that this can be built for a tenth of the cost of high-speed rail and a quarter of a freeway. That's why it sees the potential of traveling from the US to India in 3 hours for under $50, as its CEO Daryl Oster told TechRepublic in 2017.

What will be the impact of the hyperloop?

When people can quickly and inexpensively commute between major metropolitan areas and from outlying suburbs into big cities, it is going to fuel several economic disruptions naturally:

1. Where employees can live--Longer distance commuters will give employees a lot more options for housing and which jobs they can consider.
2. Where companies can hire--Enabling longer commutes also widens the pool of job candidates for employers and could make it easier to fill niche job roles. It could also make it easier for companies to open more small, remote offices where employees can work most of the time--but can jump on the hyperloop and come to HQ for in-person meetings when needed.

1. Real estate prices--By drawing a larger circle around metropolitan areas due to longer commutes, the runaway inflation of real estate prices in cities such as San Francisco, London, New York, and Boston could be eased.
2. Tourism--Even as hyperloop might lead to the real estate boom abating in some big cities, their daily foot traffic is likely to increase as it becomes easier and cheaper for more people to whisk in for short trips to shop, visit, and attend events.