Mujinga Pod

In 2018, Swissloop competed in the Hyperloop Pod Competition for the second time. Our team developed and built a 3.5m long pod called “Mujinga”. The pod is named after the Swiss athlete Mujinga Kambundji, who currently holds the Swiss records for 100 meter and 60-meter sprints.

Unlike its predecessor Escher, Mujinga is powered by four electric motors. Together, they generate over 540 PS — which is approximately 2.5 times the capacity of a Bugatti sports car. Two batteries provide a total of 700 volts energy, an amount that exceeds 1’500 iPhone batteries.

Although Mujinga did not make it into the final three due to our batteries’ short-circuiting, we were among the twenty teams to be invited to LA to present and test our pods there.

The battery with its four inverters and the main PCB are located in between the wheel pairs.
The central element of our Pod is the carbon fiber chassis onto which all other subsystems are mounted.
To create larger wheel friction to achieve the needed acceleration, a clamping system is used that pushes the Pod down on the track.
The EMRAX motors which are located inside each wheel are driven by power inverters. They deliver enough torque to accelerate our Pod to 140 m/s.
To decelerate the Pod, two hydraulic brakes in the back of the Pod are used.
To maintain lateral stability the Pod has four stability wheels that absorb the shocks from the track and also limit the horizontal displacement.
In order to make the Pod lighter, the shell is made of carbon fiber. The goal of the shell design is to achieve a sleek, simplistic but most importantly a futuristic shape. The viewer should get the feeling as if a product from future has arrived. It will protect the Pod from outside influences and make it more aerodynamic. The shell will consists of six layers of multidirectional carbon fiber, giving it a thickness of 3 mm.

The Making of Mujinga