SBIR Phase II:Hyprlift Vertical Transportation System Prototype

The broader impact/commercialization potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will facilitate the development of the next generation of vertical transportation within the ever-taller skyscrapers of future urban centers. Successful commercialization will enhance the economic competitiveness of the United States in an expanding $26 billion market for elevators with “smart” technologies. The resulting products will allow building owners to meet their intra-building transportation needs of throughput and ride quality with fewer elevator shafts, freeing up more valuable lettable space within building cores. Aside from this and other value propositions delivered to the target customer segments, these products could reduce urban sprawl and the carbon footprints of buildings that utilize them, enhancing the quality of life for citizens of densely populated cities. Further, technologies developed as part of this project may be applied to other sustainable industries, such as electric vehicles and energy storage. _x000D_ _x000D_ The intellectual merit includes the development and verification of all core subsystems required for a complete vertical transportation system built around a novel dynamic tractive drive technology. This research will be conducted in four primary phases. First, a revised tractive drive unit (TDU) will be created that repackages the initial proof-of-concept design into a more compact and efficient mechanism that also fully implements both an active suspension and parking brake. Next, a complete elevator cab prototype will be constructed that incorporates four of the new TDUs, a proprietary control system, and all standard off-the-shelf electromechanical systems required for a passenger elevator cab. Third, a lateral transfer station (LTS) prototype will be constructed, which will allow cabs to transfer between adjacent shafts (and thus “circulate” within a building), a key feature of the eventual system. Each of these subsystems will be validated individually, and these experiments will culminate in the fourth phase of the project: repeated travel of the prototype cab to designated “stops” with all normal elevator operations, as well as fully-automated LTS docking and transfer._x000D_ _x000D_ This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.