Differential drive robot with bicycle front wheel hub motors?

[Rollo]

Dear Coleman,

thank you for your answer and sorry for my late reply.

@cbenson

consider opting for a more complete e-bike starter kit solution which includes all of the electronics

That is what I thought but I have not found and e-bike / pedelec kit with a dual controller for good synchronization.

@cbenson

Can you provide a sketch of what you think it might look like?

There is a very interesting, well designed and mature commercial system available but I would like to go for much larger wheels (in diameter) to improve performance in pastures with rough texture caused by cattle trampling. It seems to me that they are using (BLDC?) motors with gears. Worm gears seem to be advantageous to me because the system would not roll on slopes while not powered.

@cbenson

The e-bike hub motors are not designed for very slow speeds, so they might not be very efficient running as slowly as 1m/s.

There are hub motors with planetary gears integrated, such as in this video. I think they are used for mountain biking revealing higher torque than usual.

Another alternative might be hub motors for wheel chairs.

Just a few random examples from Alibaba:

• 12 inch wheelchair hub motor wheel
• 20 inch wheelchair hub motor wheel
• 10 inch, not a hub motor, complete kit, with gear and electromechanical brake
• BLDC motor with worm gear, 120Nm

I still would have to mount larger 28’’ rims to the motors somehow …

What about the dual channel motor driver from robotshop? Do you think I could use them with the hub motors? Aren’t the hub motors not BLDC? What about reverse rotation?