Swissloop Switserland Unveils Multi-Pod Hyperloop Prototype for 2026

Swissloop: A new journey in transportation

Swissloop is a student-led engineering team from ETH Zurich that is pushing the boundaries of Hyperloop technology. Each year, we develop a new prototype to compete at the European Hyperloop Week, an international competition dedicated to advancing high-speed and sustainable transportation. In the 2025 season, more than 20 teams from around the world took part, and Swissloop secured second place overall while winning four out of five engineering awards.

For the 2026 project year, our prototype takes the next major step forward. Instead of operating a single vehicle, we aim to run multiple pods on the same track through wireless pod-to-pod coupling, enabling two vehicles to operate simultaneously for the first time in competition. This advancement does not come at the expense of performance or safety. The pod remains fully vacuum proof, is designed to accommodate one passenger, and combines increased motor power with a reduced overall pod size.

This progress would not be possible without the strong support of Eurocircuits. All core electronics of the pod are designed in-house by the Swissloop electronics team and manufactured with Eurocircuits' support. This includes for instance the Vehicle Control Unit, which serves as the central interface between subsystems, as well as our FPGA Control Board responsible for the current controls of the power converters.

This week, the first PCBs of the 2026 project arrived in our workshop, marking a key milestone in the development of the new Swissloop pod. The board shown is the Levitation HV Board, which hosts the MOSFET modules and performs the power conversion for the levitation system using a full bridge topology. A hysteresis based current control keeps the coil current within a defined operating window, ensuring stable and efficient levitation.

The requirements for this board are demanding, with operating conditions of up to 100 A and around 1000 V, placing strict constraints on layout, insulation distances, and thermal design. The Levitation HV Board forms the basis of a stacked inverter architecture. Stacked on top of it, a driver board integrates the gate driver communication and signal readout, while a third FPGA control board hosts the control logic for the hysteresis current controller and communication with the Vehicle Control Unit.

With the first boards now in our workshop, we are starting component assembly and system bring up, laying the foundation for the full integration into the pod. Over the coming months, these electronics will be validated under realistic operating conditions before being deployed on track. We are looking ahead to the European Hyperloop Week 2026, where the full system, including the new multi pod capable architecture, will be tested and demonstrated as part of our most ambitious prototype to date.

For more information please visit the Swissloop Switzerland website.