Technology has been developed to enable communication within a hyperloop running at a high speed of 1,200 km/h, and expectations are high that this will become the basis for wireless communication design in future high-speed transportation.

UNIST (President Yong-Hoon Lee) announced on the 18th that Professor Hyoil Kim's team from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering developed a technique to analyze wireless communication waves (communication channels) within a hyperloop.

It is expected to become the foundation technology for designing wireless communication systems to monitor the safety of high-speed passenger cars and provide Internet services.

Hyperloop is a next-generation transportation system that accelerates passenger cars called 'pods' one at a time inside a near-vacuum tube called a 'tube' to travel at speeds of up to 1,200 km/h.

When designing a wireless communication system for Hyperloop, communication channel analysis, which predicts how radio waves propagate in three-dimensional space, is essential to determine antenna design, carrier frequency, bandwidth, etc.

On the other hand, in the case of Hyperloop, there were limitations in analysis using existing electromagnetic wave simulators.

The tube resembles a waveguide that can trap radio waves and is very long, hundreds of kilometers long, so radio waves can pass through it normally. Because it spreads far beyond space.

The scope of objects (such as base stations) to be included in the simulation has been significantly expanded. The impact of pods traveling at high speeds within the tube is another variable.

To address this, the research team developed a new technique that simulates each of the three representative sections and mathematically connects them to model the entire tube.

This method involves dividing the electromagnetic wave simulation into a single base station section, a single pod section, and an empty tube section without a base station or pod, and then connecting them using the 'network parameter modeling' technique.

Analysis results showed that various signal distortion phenomena, such as signal transmission and reflection, were occurring in each pod. A representative example is the reception of multiple interference signals that occur when some of the interference signals transmitted by other base stations penetrate multiple pod sections.

Based on these analysis results, the research team identified the most suitable frequency band, maximum possible bandwidth, and optimal electromagnetic mode for wireless communication within the Hyperloop.

Additionally, it was possible to accurately predict the reception strength of communication signals depending on the driving position of the pod.

Professor Kim Hyo-il said, “The analysis technique is flexible, so it has the advantage of being easily applicable even if the specifications of the Hyperloop change,” and expressed his expectation that “it can serve as a source technology in related fields such as antenna design optimized for the Hyperloop environment, development of communication techniques, and pod design considering communication performance.”

Meanwhile, this study was conducted in collaboration with Professor Ki-Jin Han of Dongguk University (joint corresponding author), and Researcher Jeong-Tak Kim (Combined Master's and Doctoral Program in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, UNIST) participated as the first author.

The research results were published in IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, an authoritative journal in the field of mobility.