French manufacturer of tires with 128 years of history is going to begin a new era in the industry. Recently, Michelin introduced the concept of “wheels of the future” – he has no reference to a specific vehicle, but there are signs of a new technological era. From the integration in the Internet of things to a zero impact on the environment.
Individually, all the key features of the future superales already created, albeit in the format of prototypes and concepts — Michelin it only remains to combine everything together and bring to the level of serial production. This wheel will be manufactured by 3D printing – it has no separation on the rim, disk, tyre, there is only the monolithic porous structure. The wheel is not necessary to pump, to control the degree of its wear and tread depth, but makes sense to change to a different model, depending on current conditions.
To this end, in the nodal points of supercorsa located RFID sensors, integrated on-Board machine and the world wide web. The wheel itself is in control of their condition relative to current conditions and the tasks, if something does not meet criteria – the command is given to print the correct option. You just stop at the nearest point of service and change the wheels.
The old wheels are stored, they just launch the mechanism of destruction. Technology is purely fantastic, but interesting material for the wheels is created from bio-waste like bagasse, cardboard, cores of apples and orange peel. Somehow he remains resistant to all types of load while the wheel in the work, and then sent to the compost pile, where it becomes fertilizer. It’s real, but projected need about 10 years to develop a biodegradable analogue for each component in the composition of the existing tires.
It turns out that if Michelin is not stingy on grants for inventors and researchers, the first super wheel of a new type may appear by the middle of this century. About the same time in a society rooted perception of transport as a standalone device that takes care of themselves. The question of “changing shoes” of the machine will disappear as such.
