Solid State Transportation

Inductrack
Lawrence Livermore National Labs passive MagLev technology

(SkyTran Incorporated is currently negotiating a Licensing/Joint Venture arrangement with LLNL for use of their Inductrack™ technology.)

Lawrence Livermore National Labs physicist, Dr. Richard F. Post, an renowned expert in the fields of fusion and flywheels has recently added the field of Magnetic Levitation to his credits. The Inductrack innovation is based on Dr. Post's earlier research to develop passive magnetic bearings for flywheel electromechanical energy storage devices.  Dr. Post published the definitive work on flywheel technology and it's potential future in the December 1973 issue of Scientific American Magazine (10 years to the month that SkyTran inventor, Doug Malewicki's cover feature article on the "Aerodynamics of Human Powered Vehicles" appeared in that same publication).

A nice introduction to the Inductrack system with pictures is posted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Science and Technology Review web site at: INDUCTRACK

Scott R. Gurley at Popular Mechanics also wrote "Track to the Future" about the Inductrack technology. 

There are also two LLNL technical papers on the technology:
1) "Inductrack Demonstration Model",  by R.F. Post, February 1998, UCRL-ID-129664 and
2) "The Inductrack Concept: a New Approach to Magnetic Levitation", by Richard F. Post and Dmitri Ryutov, May 1996, UCRL-ID-124115.

Both of these papers are heavy with mathematics.  An excerpt from the first paper gives one a rough idea of how it works: "The Inductrack concept is a passive magnetic levitation system for moving objects that employs special arrays of permanent magnets in a moving object.  the magnetic field from these arrays induces currents in the "track" that, by interacting with the magnetic field, produce strong lifting forces.  By contrast with other magnetic levitation systems, no superconducting magnet coils or servo control circuits are required and the ratio of lifting force to drag force is much higher than magnetic levitation systems that rely on eddy currents induced in conducting surfaces."

One of the important aspects of this technology is that the mathematical models are well defined and thus useable for our small 700 pound gross weight vehicles going at relatively slow speeds of 100 mph.   Most MagLev trains that are currently envisioned are in the 100,000 pound gross weight range and 400 mph speeds!  NASA is also studying the Inductrack technology as an acceleration device that could launch small hardened payloads directly from the earth's surface into orbit for very low costs.