A Hawaii Kai-based technology startup, Hyprlift, Inc., has been awarded federal grant money to pursue a next-generation elevator system.
The $255,857 for the two-year-old company came from the National Science Foundation through the Small Business Innovation Research program.
Founder and CEO James Hutchinson, a mechanical design engineer who has nearly three decades working with elevators, told Pacific Business News he's thinking big for an industry that, as he puts it, has not seen significant innovation in 165 years.
“We aim to be Hawaii’s next high-tech success story … the next unicorn," he said.
The premise of Hyprlift's project is to replace traditional cable-propelled elevators with cable-free models that have an "onboard dynamic-tractive drive system that engages with the shaft and propels cabs at high speed."
The objective is improved efficiency of transport, especially in taller high rises.
“Our revolutionary elevator drive system will transform cabs into self-propelled, high-performance electric vehicles that are not bound to a single shaft, but instead navigate autonomously throughout multiple shafts,” Hutchinson said in a Hyprlift release. “What’s more, the absence of cables will allow multiple cabs to travel within the same shaft, enabling greater transport capacity and shorter wait times to be achieved using fewer shafts than traditional elevator systems.”
Hutchinson previously worked in development with Otis Elevator and Dover Elevator before launching a startup, Pacific Elevator. According to his bio, he exited Pacific Elevator, the state's largest independent elevator company, when it was acquired. He also owned former elevator maintenance firm Akamai Elevator Co.
He told PBN he plans to take his team of three — Hyprlift includes Chief Technology Officer Robert Nakata and Lead Mechanical Engineer Daniel Johnson — first to an industrial space in Downtown Honolulu to build their proof-of-concept prototype, then to Silicon Valley sometime in 2022 to raise private funding.
The NSF grant puts Hyprlift in position to receive Phase II money as well, he said.
“NSF is proud to support the technology of the future by thinking beyond incremental developments and funding the most creative, impactful ideas across all markets and areas of science and engineering,” said Andrea Belz, NSF's director of the division of industrial innovation and partnerships, in the release. “With the support of our research funds, deep-technology startups can guide basic science into meaningful solutions that address tremendous needs.”
