Goodyear has shown the concept of spherical tires on magnetic levitation

Yesterday, at the Geneva Motor Show, the well-known American tire manufacturer Goodyear showed an unusual concept - an Eagle-360 fully spherical tire designed specifically for robotic cars. Such a movement of the “wheels” of a robocar with the maximum degree of freedom is ensured by the fact that new tires are held due to magnetic levitation - the front and rear axles are virtually absent.

The Eagle-360 tire itself will be printed on a special 3D printer, while its surface relief mimics the surface of the coral brain . Thanks to its material, the Eagle-360 will provide a stable tire behavior in various weather conditions - in a dry climate it will behave like a more rigid structure, and with a lot of moisture, on the contrary, it will get a softer texture. Due to this, the manufacturer plans to avoid the effect of aquaplaning.

In addition, the tire itself will be a high-tech gadget: it will contain a large number of sensors for analyzing the road surface and interacting with the car. This will provide additional safety factors for the robocar, since the concept itself was being prepared for even greater safety of movement on autonomous cars. An additional advantage of the Eagle-360 concept is maximum maneuverability - parking such a machine will become much more efficient than usual.
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As the manufacturer claims, Goodyear is already discussing the interaction of “smart spherical tires” with other intelligent systems of cars from different manufacturers. Although it is extremely early to talk about the reality of the concept being implemented, thus Goodyear already declares how he sees the future of robocars and safe traffic.