OUR LEGACY

The AMT Story

The journey of American Maglev Technology began with a radical vision for the future of transit, challenging conventional boundaries of speed and efficiency. AMT was built to address technical requirements that traditional transit solutions simply couldn't meet, evolving from a singular focus on magnetic levitation into a multi-disciplinary innovation powerhouse.

Built to Solve Problems Many Consider Too Difficult

American Maglev Technology, Inc. was founded in 1994 to pursue a bold transportation idea: develop a practical American magnetic-levitation system that could move people efficiently without conventional wheels, engines, or onboard combustion.

Maglev became AMT’s proving ground—but it was only the beginning.

The technical demands of levitation required AMT to master far more than transportation. The work called for advanced electromagnetic modeling, linear propulsion, non-contact braking, power electronics, structural engineering, controls, thermal management, energy storage, systems integration, and full-scale testing. Those capabilities now form the foundation of a much broader engineering enterprise serving the energy, defense, transportation, and industrial markets.

Today, AMT converts difficult research into engineered systems that can be tested, deployed, and commercialized.

The Beginning: Atlanta and Edgewater

AMT’s story began during preparations for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The region’s transportation challenges inspired company founder Tony Morris to explore whether magnetic-levitation technology could provide a cleaner, quieter, and more flexible alternative to conventional rail.

Working with physicist and electromagnetic engineer Dr. Kent Davey, Morris began developing an American approach to maglev. Unlike systems that placed complex and expensive equipment throughout the guideway, AMT concentrated the active components and controls onboard the vehicle. The objective was to create a simpler, less costly infrastructure that could be manufactured and deployed using established American industrial capabilities.

American Maglev of Florida, Inc. was incorporated in 1994, and an early test program was established in Daytona Beach, Florida. With support from local leaders, engineers, suppliers, and strategic partners, AMT designed and tested the fundamental elements of its system—including levitation, propulsion, guidance, controls, power delivery, and vehicle integration—and built a test site in nearby Edgewater.

The Edgewater program demonstrated that AMT’s core magnetic technologies could work together as a complete system. It also established the company’s lasting engineering philosophy: model the physics, build the hardware, test it under real conditions, and use the results to improve the next generation.

Old Dominion University: Moving Above Ground

In December 2000, AMT was selected to develop a full-scale maglev demonstration system at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. AMT contributed equipment, intellectual property, private investment, and knowledge developed through years of work in Florida.

Construction began in July 2001. The civil works were completed in just 37 days, demonstrating the speed with which an elevated guideway could be assembled. The project envisioned an automated system connecting major points across the university campus while serving as a national research platform for magnetic transportation.

The September 11 attacks soon redirected federal priorities and delayed expected project funding. In 2004, only $2 million of an anticipated $7 million federal allocation was released, with $1.5 million directed to the university and $500,000 to AMT. AMT used its portion to support contractors and continue critical engineering work, but the reduced funding limited the company’s ability to complete the full development program as planned.

The transition from ground-level testing to an elevated structure also revealed an important systems-engineering challenge. The rigid vehicle and flexible elevated guideway interacted dynamically in ways that had not appeared during testing on solid ground. Maintaining consistent levitation required the vehicle to be mechanically decoupled from guideway movement through an appropriate suspension system.

That lesson became one of the most consequential in AMT’s history: a technology can perform successfully at the component level while still requiring additional engineering at the interfaces between structures, controls, power, and mechanical systems.

By late 2005, Old Dominion University elected to continue the project as a university-led research effort and concluded that AMT had fulfilled its role. Although the campus system did not enter passenger service, the program produced invaluable data, intellectual property, and full-scale deployment experience that shaped AMT’s future work.

Powder Springs: Full-Scale Validation

In 2006, AMT began constructing a new test facility in Powder Springs, Georgia. The approximately 2,000-foot elevated guideway incorporated the lessons learned in Florida and Virginia, including improvements to vehicle suspension, levitation stability, propulsion, controls, and guideway interaction.

The system became fully operational in 2007.

Across three generations of test facilities, AMT coordinated a nationwide industrial team involving more than 100 companies across 26 states. The Powder Springs installation became the only operational, full-scale maglev test track built in the United States and demonstrated AMT’s ability to take a complex electromechanical concept from analytical design through construction, integration, and operation.

Just as importantly, the program showed that the capabilities developed for maglev could solve difficult problems far beyond transit.

From Maglev to Mission-Critical Engineering

Beginning in 2007, AMT deliberately expanded into defense, energy, aerospace, and industrial applications. The company applied its experience with high-speed electromagnetic systems to permanent-magnet braking, magnetic gears and couplings, advanced propulsion, microgrid energy storage, thermal protection, power conversion, and electromagnetic shielding.

Through 2022, AMT’s documented federal research portfolio included 17 Phase I and Phase II SBIR/STTR awards across 11 distinct programs, representing approximately $9.5 million in competitive research funding. These programs were sponsored by the U.S. Navy, Defense Logistics Agency, Department of Energy, and U.S. Air Force.

For the Navy, AMT developed and demonstrated permanent-magnet eddy-current braking systems capable of stopping high-speed moving equipment without frictional contact. One demonstration stopped a 250-pound test article traveling at more than 70 knots in less than 22 inches. Another stopped a titanium disk rotating at the equivalent of approximately 207 miles per hour in less than one second.

That work expanded into alternative braking systems for aircraft, including a multi-phase Defense Logistics Agency program associated with the F-18. AMT integrated custom magnetic hardware, silicon-carbide power electronics, capacitors, control equipment, and liquid cooling into a complete test system. In March 2023, the company conducted purpose-built dynamometer testing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

AMT also developed magnetic gears and non-contact couplings for demanding marine and industrial applications. This work supported new approaches to power transmission, canal-based hydropower, aircraft systems, and underwater propulsion—including advanced propellers for torpedoes and unmanned underwater vehicles.

Energy Recovery and Advanced Power Systems

AMT’s energy work grew naturally from its experience managing large electrical loads in maglev vehicles.

In 2012, AMT received a $4.2 million TIGGER Program grant through Portland’s TriMet system to improve the efficiency of its light-rail fleet. AMT installed double-layer capacitor units on 27 Type 3 vehicles. The systems captured electrical energy during braking, stored it, and released it during acceleration—reducing wasted energy while supporting vehicle performance.

AMT has pursued increasingly ambitious energy-storage and power-management systems ever since. Its work has included onboard storage, microgrid applications, high-power conversion, grid stabilization, superconducting transformers, and superconducting magnetic energy storage.

The company became active in superconductivity in 2015 and licensed advanced second-generation high-temperature superconducting technology from the University of Houston in 2020. The licensed 2G-HTS platform offers a path toward higher current density, stronger magnetic fields, reduced system weight, and lower costs across a range of energy and defense applications.

In a 2021 Department of Energy Phase I program, AMT worked with the University of Houston, NRG Energy, and Burns & McDonnell to investigate grid-scale superconducting magnetic energy storage. The team developed high-voltage interconnection concepts, facility layouts, coil configurations, cryogenic approaches, structural designs, and power-conditioning architecture for potential installation at two NRG power plants in the Houston area.

The resulting 525-megawatt-hour conceptual system was designed to support voltage regulation, peak-capacity needs, protection from interruptions and brownouts, and black-start capability following a major grid failure. Unlike electrochemical batteries, SMES stores energy directly in a magnetic field and has the potential to perform millions of charging cycles without the degradation associated with chemical storage.

That same year, AMT and the University of Houston completed a Navy STTR program investigating a lightweight, hatchable superconducting transformer for shipboard use. The air-core design explored reductions in weight and footprint while advancing AMT’s knowledge of AC losses, magnetic flux, cryogenic systems, and integration of 2G-HTS technology.

Engineering for Demanding Defense Environments

AMT’s defense work extends beyond electromagnetics into thermal protection, advanced materials, survivability, and field integration.

For the U.S. Navy, AMT developed a passive jet-blast deflector designed to withstand extreme heating while protecting personnel, equipment, and ship structures. The full-scale prototype combines a novel aluminum-cerium alloy with high-thermal-conductivity carbon foam and phase-change materials. The resulting architecture is intended to reduce weight and maintenance requirements compared with conventional actively cooled systems.

For the U.S. Air Force, AMT has investigated lightweight composite solutions for electromagnetic-interference and electromagnetic-pulse protection. This work has included carbon foam, MXenes, coatings, laminates, impregnated materials, and layered composite structures engineered to improve attenuation across the E1, E2, and E3 components of an electromagnetic pulse.

These programs reflect AMT’s role as a systems integrator. The company combines electromagnetic, structural, thermal, mechanical, materials, power-electronic, and controls expertise to create complete solutions—not isolated components.

Turning Research into Companies

AMT was built to do more than win research programs. Its operating model is designed to transform federally supported innovation into intellectual property, prototypes, commercial products, and focused operating companies.

The process begins with a difficult mission or industrial problem. AMT assembles the right technical team, develops and validates a solution, and identifies the reusable capability created through the work. When a technology reaches the appropriate stage, it can be advanced through licensing, strategic partnerships, or a dedicated commercial company.

This model has produced several notable ventures.

Neotonus applied magnetic technology to noninvasive medical treatment. The company raised approximately $12 million, earned two FDA clearances, established an ISO 13485 quality system, and developed distribution across the United States and dozens of international markets before its intellectual property was licensed to a German medical-technology company.

Emrgy emerged from AMT’s work in magnetic gearing and power generation. The company developed modular hydroelectric systems that convert the energy in canals and other distributed waterways into renewable electricity. Emrgy was spun out as a focused company in 2016 and has since attracted major private investment and commercial partnerships.

Inductive Ventures was formed to advance technologies associated with aircraft braking, electric taxiing, and related high-performance electromagnetic systems.

American SuperMagnetics was established to commercialize advanced 2G-HTS technology and pursue high-capacity superconducting products for power transmission, energy storage, data centers, defense, fusion, and other high-field applications.

Each venture reflects the same AMT principle: solve the first problem, retain the underlying capability, and create a pathway for that capability to reach larger markets.

AMT Today

Today, AMT organizes its work around three integrated capability platforms:

Advanced Magnetic Electromechanics

AMT develops systems that convert electromagnetic forces into controlled motion, torque, propulsion, levitation, or braking. Capabilities include linear induction motors, eddy-current brakes, permanent-magnet systems, magnetic gears and couplings, high-speed electromechanical analysis, advanced controls, and custom test equipment.

Strategic Defense & Active Operations

AMT engineers and integrates mission-critical systems for demanding operational environments. Current capabilities span aircraft and launch-system braking, underwater propulsion, passive jet-blast protection, EMI/EMP shielding, advanced materials, thermal management, prototype fabrication, and full-scale test execution.

Advanced Power & Energy Systems

AMT develops technologies for storing, transmitting, conditioning, recovering, and stabilizing electrical power. This platform includes superconducting magnetic energy storage, 2G-HTS conductors and devices, lightweight transformers, microgrid systems, regenerative energy recovery, advanced power electronics, and high-capacity infrastructure for data centers and the electrical grid.

AMT supports these platforms with multidisciplinary modeling, internally developed electromagnetic-analysis tools, commercial finite-element software, mechanical and structural engineering, thermal and composite analysis, controls development, prototype fabrication, and system-level testing. The company is ITAR registered and maintains a cybersecurity program aligned with NIST 800-171 and CMMC Level 2 requirements.

For more than three decades, AMT has worked at the boundary between ambitious ideas and operational hardware. Its history includes successes, difficult engineering lessons, national partnerships, competitive federal programs, commercial spinouts, and technologies that have moved from equations to full-scale demonstrations.

Maglev established the foundation. What AMT built from that foundation is a reusable American engineering capability—one designed to turn the hardest problems in magnetics, power, defense, and advanced electromechanical systems into practical solutions.