  A wheel that is capable of producing thrust and maintaining vehicle internal
integrity is presented. The wheel can be seen as an organic extension to the
central unit (eg the vehicle) it is attached to, that is, the system and the
wheel can be completely surrounded by the same tegument while enabling
continuous wheel rotation without tearing the tegument. Furthermore, a skeleton
linking the central unit of the system to the wheel's center can be made
through the use of joints and linear links, while allowing the apparatus to
rotate continuously in the same direction with bounded twisting and no tegument
tear. For that reason, artificial muscles can also be used to actuate the
entire system. The underlying enabling mechanism is the rectification of a
small number of oscillatory inputs. Another contribution of the proposed setup
is to offer a plausible, yet untested, evolutionary path from today's living
animals towards animals capable of wheeled locomotion.
