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About HUB-ee Wheels

HUB-ee wheels didn't make it in so they have been retired.

HUB-ee Wheels

The HUB-ee is a type of robot servo but designed for wheels, in fact it is a wheel, but it is also a motor, a sensor and a motor controller all rolled into one.

When you want to add wheels to your robot you would normally start with a whole collection of parts: The motor and gearbox, a motor driver board, and maybe some sensors for measuring wheel speed and a controller to count revolutions or provide closed loop speed control.

An idea!

We thought it would be handy if you could just buy a wheel that had all of those things build in so we set about designing one and the result is the HUB-ee - just bolt it onto a chassis, apply power and away you go!


Here are a few key features:

  • Removable 12mm gearmotor - available in a range of gear ratios (currently available 20:1 and 30:1)
  • Integrated, open source PCB with:
    • Motor driver IC
    • 32 stripe (128 counts per revolution) quadrature encoder
  • Designed for tyres or tank tracks
  • Two internal threaded inserts (metric M3 or imperial 4/40) make it easy to bolt on to a chassis.
  • LEGO® compatible mounting sockets

They are easy to take apart so you can remove or replace the motor or electronics. For more detailed information please visit the HUB-ee resources page.

Pronunciation? ... It's HUB as in wheel hub, with an ee as in e-mail.

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Want to see HUB-ee wheels in action - check out these videos:


An Arduino™ Uno powered bot with IR rangefinders and all round tactile bumpers. (Yes - we plan to launch robot kits like this one soon, and our own range of shields for Arduino™)


Tankbot - Showing off how HUB-ee wheels can be used with tank tracks, and check out that ground clearance - that's what you get when you put the motor inside the wheel!


We decided to try out some extra powerful motors in our UnoBot chassis. The result - a very speedy bot!
The Arduino™ sketch is a little bit adaptive, the bot keeps track of sensor activity and ramps up the motor power if it thinks it is in an open space.
Still got some work to do on that stopping distance - those head on collisions hurt!

The HUB-ee wheel
The basic wheel, with and without the tyre - with the tyre it is 60mm in diameter and just 20mm wide.

HUB-ee with tank tracks
Without the tyre you can use it to drive tank tracks.

All the parts for a HUB-ee
An exploded HUB-ee. They can easily be stripped down and hacked, plus all the electronics are open source.
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