Technion students developed a magnetic vehicle that floats in the air and a toolbox that follows its owner

The development won the competition of the technical program for autonomous systems

The technical program for autonomous systems held a competition among the Sudanese in certification studies for the design and construction of models of unmanned autonomous systems. The winners of the competition were Erez Horev from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who developed a magnetic vehicle that floats in the air, and Doron Laor from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, who developed a motorized toolbox that follows its owner.
Erez's model simulates a magnetic toll road for private vehicles. The vehicle travels both on the road and on magnetic tracks (without contact of the wheels with the ground). "Because of the high speeds that can be reached using this technology, the project can compete not only with existing toll roads, but even with domestic flights and trains," emphasizes Erez. He previously worked on Route 6 and then in the Matron project (the light rail in Haifa) and that's where the idea came to his mind. He built the model for six months, dealing with challenges in magnetic fields and magnetic stability. He used four vehicles, one working on push, the other on pull, one of the models was equipped with a controller that switches between driving with or without the help of the magnetic field. Every vehicle has a drive propeller and a sensor, which communicates with a sensor that is also on the road.
"The vehicle will travel at a speed of 400 km/h and the driver will be able to go to sleep," says Erez. "It is good for long roads without exits. Indeed, the cost of such a road and such a vehicle is expensive, but on the other hand there is a huge saving in fuel and especially in human life since the chance of a collision is zero. When the magnetic road ends, the driver activates the wheels and continues driving normally."
Doron Laor built a model of a toolbox that follows its owner. He used to work as a maintenance man at Kibbutz Dan's factory, and he dragged the heavy toolbox with him, which reaches a total weight of a hundred kilograms or more. He built a toolbox that follows the operator electrically, with electromechanical sensing. "The model was built in light of several guiding principles," says Doron. "First, we will focus on the main technological problem and avoid other knowledge gaps as much as possible. Second, the integrated drive system and steering system have implications for the automotive world and must be explored accordingly. Third - the model must be built within four days and without using up the budget, therefore a way must be found to replace expensive electrical components with cheap replacements that will perform the same tasks, such as a multi-turn potentiometer connected to a simple meter, converting the person's distance from the box to electrical voltage as a replacement for an ultrasonic sensor , or a solid-state relay that operates at intervals and drives the motors at a variable speed as a replacement for a current regulator".

For the purpose of operating the model, Doron, together with his friends at the factory, built a metal frame on which the box is assembled, at the end of which a pair of odometers are assembled and below it four wheels, the front ones of which are separately motorized and connected by a steering comb. When the maintenance person attaches the odometer to his belt and activates the device, an industrial controller reads the voltage of the potentiometers and activates the motors so that the distance between the box and the operator remains constant. The speed difference between the motors creates the steering and directs the box straight to the maintenance man.
In the pictures: the magnetic assembly and the toolbox. Photo: Erez Horev and Doron Laor.