Alberts is one of several ODU professors and graduate students who stepped in when American Maglev Technology’s train got off track because of lawsuits for unpaid bills and technology that didn’t work. Despite the project’s spotty record, they’ve devoted their time and expertise to making it run.

But the only thing running now is the clock.

About $200,000 remains of a $2 million federal grant to advance the technology. By the end of the year, university officials hope to decide whether to seek more money and time.

Their decision will rest on the results of a series of critical tests – the first of which may happen as early as this week.

“We need to demonstrate that some progress has been made, at least sensible levitation and moving it up and down the track a little,” said Colin P. Britcher , an aerospace engineering professor.

“If we’re not able to do that, we don’t look very credible. I think we can do that. I’ve thought that all along.”

Professor Thomas Alberts, a computer controls expert, says he is optimistic that the “humble effort” at Old Dominion University can advance maglev technology. STEPHEN M. KATZ / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

Georgia-based American Maglev, and its partners, including Lockheed Martin Corp., promised in 1999 to deliver a working transportation system by the fall of 2002 . But technical glitches, cost overruns and lawsuits derailed the project and the train sat idle for nearly two years.

The train levitated and moved, but instead of floating on a cushion of air as promised by American Maglev, it bumped, rattled and vibrated.

With $14 million in state and private money already spent, federal authorities stepped in in April 2004 with $2 million to try to fix it.

That’s when ODU took control of the money and the work.

After maglev’s inauspicious start, expectations changed. It’s no longer a transportation project – it’s a research project. The goal of the federal grant is to produce an engineering prototype. There’s no promise of transporting students around campus at 40 mph .

ODU officials say the system could be years and millions of dollars away from being usable as mass transit.

“I would like to keep working in this area,” said Jeremiah F. Creedon , ODU’s director of transportation research. “It’s a high-risk, high-payoff area. It’s not research if we can guarantee success every time, although it would be nice to have a success here that we can build off of.

“There’s a huge need for a system that will not only work, but will work within a set of parameters where cities could afford to build it and people could afford to ride it.”

The only passenger-carrying maglev in the world, a high-speed train in China, cost billions to develop and billions more to build.

The ODU researchers built a laboratory test bed and have devised models and simulations to study the maglev system.

ODU worked with American Maglev and Lockheed Martin to change the computer control system to smooth the ride. Tests this past spring showed that the new control worked when the vehicle was levitated over a solid column, but when it was moved to a section of track between columns, the guideway vibrated, causing the vehicle to bump against the track.

Professor Thomas Alberts, seated, and technical assistant Jeremy Roadcap recently discuss the results of a maglev simulator test at ODU.

Now ODU professors are taking a crack at their own fix. They have improved the track’s alignment, retrofitted the vehicle’s magnets and reinstalled them so they’re on the same plane. They have revised the computer controls using a decentralized approach to operating the vehicle’s 12 magnets.

They have even fashioned netting to cover the vehicle when it’s not being worked on to discourage pigeons from roosting there.

Alberts, a computer controls expert, said getting maglev to work has become his passion.

The dry erase board in his office is covered in math equations and schematics. His laboratory, a short walk across campus, contains a small test bed and a larger, yet still scaled down, maglev train chassis.

He spends countless hours, often late into the night, testing and tweaking the system in the lab. The test rig consists of a large electromagnet bolted to a frame that mimics a maglev vehicle and sensors, which are all connected by a tangle of wires to a bank of computers and monitors.

When the test rig is electrified, the magnetic field levitates it and holds it suspended in the air. Alberts sends variations of a computer control law to the rig and watches how it responds. He measures and graphs its stability. He squats next to the rig and feels for vibrations. At a computer, he makes adjustments and tries again.

He compares his work to trying to balance a stick upright in the palm of your hand. “It wants to fall down,” Alberts said. “It’s tedious work to get it right.”

He called the project “a humble effort,” especially after attending a maglev conference earlier this month and being reminded of the millions of dollars and years of research that others across the country have invested in the technology.

Alberts is encouraged by the results so far. But he wasn’t always optimistic.

“I thought I made a big mistake for a while,” he said. “But now, we’re in a really good position.”

Reach Debbie Messina at (757) 446-2588 or debbie.messina@pilotonline.com.