SkyTran - Non-stop 100 mph Travel
We had to say, "Wait a minute Gene! Why would you think you have to decelerate, stop at every station, and reaccelerate again? After all you are commuting all alone in your Mini MagLev vehicle. You will not be riding in a big train on a regular schedule with 10 or 40 people needing to depart at each station and another 10 to 40 people wanting to board. You can travel alone and can leave exactly when you want to. Checking a schedule for your possible trip departure times is unnecessary. Just go whenever you want to."Then we told Gene, "How about if we just make it all like a freeway? You'll travel non-stop at 100 mph until you get to your destination and then exit to a parallel track where the stations are all located." The exit switching would be purely electromagnetic, like the Aerospace Company demonstrated in the 1970's. No moving mechanical moving parts to worry about wearing out and more importantly, no mechanical parts with inertia to limit how close a vehicle could be behind yours - needed because it took time for the switch parts to move back to their straight ahead condition. Thus, our MagLev freeway would be just like a road - totally passive. You turned off when you wanted to without any action from the road itself. Using on-board electromagnetic exit lanes and merging lanes and off-line stations we could have stations every half or quarter of a mile without impeding any commuter's progress on the main freeway. If we electronically control all vehicles on the track to travel along at a precise 100 mph and spaced them equally apart, it wouldn't matter if there were 50 or 100 stations along that 28 mile stretch instead of the 24 the county wanted.
For departures from the stations we just applied our TCUP expertise. It was a snap to create software and control systems to sense available upcoming gaps in vehicle traffic on the main freeway. Then, when an appropriate gap approached, the vehicle waiting at the departure station started accelerating. The velocity build-up versus distance profile was continually monitored and acceleration power adjusted automatically 1,000 times per second in order to ensure a perfect merge onto the main freeway. In this way we could automatically compensate for gross weight variations (zero, 1 or 2 light or heavy passengers), slight climbs or descents and head or tail wind conditions. Thus, we were able to ensure that the vehicle arrived at the merge-in gap within 1/4 inch of the exact geometric middle defined by the fore and aft vehicles currently traveling at 100 mph on the main freeway track.
We used the then new $10 radar chips and transponders not only to identify each vehicle, but also to provide accurate current and relative position information to other vehicles nearby. In the rare event that a merging vehicle might miscalculate its merging parameters, the vehicles on the main freeway track simply responded by decelerating slightly to give the merging vehicle more room. There was absolutely no need for a central master computer to coordinate and control all vehicles. Each vehicle had its own basic autonomous intelligence. A central computer was still used, but only to interact with each vehicle once during each trip - to obtain vehicle identification and trip billing information.
It was quite similar to the way humans were already driving their cars in typical freeway traffic. Organic hearing and vision sensors continually paid attention to all other vehicles in the local vicinity, while the organic computer digested the sensory input and then issued commands to the muscle actuators, which adjusted forward velocity and yaw angular position control inputs accordingly. Our computer chauffeurs also had much faster response times than any human and paid 100% attention all the time.
Guess they didn't get distracted by any other nice looking exotic vehicles, or their occupants either, eh gramps?
MMMM, just so Rory, but with all those vehicles coming and going, we also had to start looking into some of the multi-vehicle platooning technology developed by the IVHS crowd. Especially important were the anticollision sensing and automatic precision spacing between vehicles. With non-mechanical, radar-coupled trains made up of many dual-passenger vehicles, we realized that maybe we could meet that 15,000 passenger per day capability the county wanted.
