The Stud Fund

Thanks to the valuable support of Stud this year, we became the world’s first team to successfully develop a lane-switching system for the Hyperloop. This system allows the pod to smoothly transition between tracks, significantly boosting the flexibility and efficiency of this transportation network. A key highlight is the functional lane switch, composed of straight sections for cruising and braking, as well as a curved segment that enables switching. We designed a pod that is much better suited for large-scale production, thus marking a significant step towards the implementation of a hyperloop network.

With this design, we participated in the European Hyperloop Week in Zurich, and won the awards for technical scalability, infrastructure, and thermal management.  Looking ahead, we will continue to scale up by developing new innovations, driving forward our mission to provide a sustainable and time-efficient alternative to short-haul flights, and reshaping global city connections.

Emergent Swarm Solutions is a Delft-based startup dedicated to revolutionizing swarming systems for various use-cases, such as search and rescue, forestry and reconnaissance. We develop highly intelligent swarming capabilities powered by decentralized algorithms, to tackle real-world challenges in denied and cluttered environments. Our drone autonomy stack is based on proprietary collision avoidance, navigation and localisation algorithms to allow fully autonomous flight through any terrain. With this technology we will be able to rapidly explore any environment and deliver detailed situational awareness. Many thanks to the STUD Fund for funding our development and increasing our simulation speed by 10x. Keep a close eye on our LinkedIn page www.linkedin.com/company/emergentswarmsolutions/ for updates and vacancies!

HyER Power is a Delft-based start-up developing a hydrogen-based heating system to make renewable energy accessible to everyone. The unique combination of a hydrogen fuel cell and a heat pump provides an extremely efficient way to supply buildings with heat and electricity. By also using the residual heat from the fuel cell for heating buildings, this system achieves higher efficiency per gram of hydrogen than alternatives like a hydrogen boiler, where the hydrogen is burned.

Moreover, the system can serve as a buffer to mitigate grid congestion, as it allows for real-time decisions on whether electricity from the grid or from the fuel cell should be used for heating the building, depending on market conditions.

Currently, HyER Power is in the prototype phase, where we are heating the PD-lab at The Green Village and demonstrating the functionality of our system on a small scale. The support of the STUD Fund makes it possible to purchase costly and important components of the system, such as the pressure control panel and hydrogen pipelines, to ensure a safe supply of hydrogen. We would like to sincerely thank STUD for this support. This gives us the confidence to establish a prototype that will be crucial for future funding and projects, helping us realize our mission: to make sustainable energy available to everyone.