The Tunneling Times

Monthly Swissloop Tunneling Newsletter

As part of this newsletter, we have some exciting news waiting for you. We officially would like to announce the development of our newest machine iteration “Groundhog Gamma”, bringing many upgrades, improvements and changes for the future
Over the last few weeks, our engineers on the mechanical & civil side have been working on new CAD parts and calculations. After a scrutineering session last month, further design reviews of all subsystems, i.e. erosion, tunnel lining, propulsion and infrastructure-specific, were conducted. In this regard, the team got valuable information on different topics from industry companies and partners like SKF, Gefran, Rollstar AG, HANSA-FLEX AG and Güdel Group AG. Then, the team proceeded to create the respective technical drawings, before sending them to our partners and producers. We’d like to further make public that we have signed up for the next Not-a-Boring Competition in 2025, for which we have handed in first documents.

Groundhog Gamma teaser

As part of a collaboration between Swissloop and Swissloop Tunneling, we attended this year’s European Hyperloop Week competition (EHW 24) on their public day, showcasing parts of our machine to the public and answering questions about our system. Besides that, we’ve also taken part in Innovate Mobility 2024, giving us opportunities for new partnerships or future association projects.

On the other side, our electrical team contacted our partners for new electrical equipment and upgrades, enabling us among others to perform repairs on Groundhog Beta. Furthermore, the sensor infrastructure for the new Groundhog Gamma system was planned. The software team continued development on our new software stack & control algorithms and performed first trials of the tunnel boring machine visualization software.

Stay tuned for more monthly updates!

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