Drives & Controls June 2022

n NEWS June 2022 www.drivesncontrols.com 8 DYSON, THE DOMESTIC APPLIANCES giant, says it wants to recruit 700 robotics engineers over the next five years as it expands its newly-revealed robotics division, which already includes 250 robotics experts working across disciplines such as computer vision, machine learning, sensors and mechatronics. Following ten years of secretive work on robots, Dyson is now revealing and accelerating development of autonomous devices capable of household chores and other tasks. The company says it is half-way through the largest engineering recruitment drive in its history with half of the 2,000 people who have joined it this year being engineers, scientists and coders. Dyson plans to create the UK's largest, most advanced, robotics centre at Hullavington Airfield in Wiltshire, and to be offering robotic technologies for use in homes by the end of the decade. Another technology it is working on is “wearables”. The company is also establishing a new laboratory close to the Dyson Robotics Lab which it has sponsored at Imperial College in London for the past ten years, as well as one at its global headquarters in Singapore. Over the past six months, Dyson has been secretly refitting one of the main hangars at Hullavington which will be the new home to 250 roboticists. This is latest stage in a £2.75bn plan to invest in new technologies, products and facilities, £600m of which will be spent this year. “Dyson employed its first roboticist 20 years ago and this year alone we are seeking 250 more experts for our team,” says Dyson’s chief engineer, Jake Dyson, who is the son of the company’s founder, Sir James Dyson. “This is a ‘big bet’ on future robotic technology that will drive research across the whole of Dyson, in areas including mechanical engineering, vision systems, machine learning and energy storage. We need the very best people in the world to come and join us now.” Dyson is seeking 700 robotics engineers for £2.75bn expansion THE BRITISH ENGINEERING group IMI is buying the German electric linear motion specialist Bahr Modultechnik for €98m (£83m). Bahr will become part of the IMI Precision Engineering’s industrial automation business. IMI says the acquisition will allow IMI Precision to offer both pneumatic and electric linear motion systems. It adds that introducing Bahr systems to IMI’s global industrial customer base “will provide significant growth synergies”. Bahr was founded in 1990 by brothers Frank and Dirk Bahr. Based in Luhden, Germany, the company supplies configured modular electric linear motion systems, based on a broad portfolio of technologies including belt, spindle, rack- and-pinion and linear motor drives. It has a diverse customer base in automation- driven markets such as pharmacy and warehouse automation, and robotics. Bahr has around 80 employees, and its linear positioning systems are sold in more than 24 countries. Its revenues grew at a CAGR of 12% from 2019 to 2021 during the Covid pandemic, and it grew by a further 27% during the first four months of 2022. In 2018, the private equity group IK Partners invested in Bahr and is currently its majority owner. Following the IMI acquisition, co-founder and co-CEO Dirk Bahr and co-CEO Cihan Halavurt will stay with the business. IMI CEO Roy Twite says that Bahr’s “unique” modular system, coupled with its customer-centric approach and ability to engineer application-specific solutions, “aligns nicely with our own business model”. Beth Ferreira, managing director of IMI Precision Engineering, adds that Bahr has “a fantastic product portfolio that is highly scalable in attractive growth markets”. IMI predicts that Bahr will be both margin and growth accretive to IMI Precision and will deliver a financial return above IMI’s cost of capital by the end of year three. www.imiplc.com www.bahr-modultechnik.de/en IMI buys Bahr to add electric linear systems to its pneumatics portfolio Bahr has a broad portfolio of electric linear motion technologies Dyson is working on a variety of robotic technologies for domestic applications