Company History

BEI Technologies, Inc. manufactures sensors, motors, actuators, and subsystems used by the aerospace, automotive, heavy equipment, industrial, medical, and military markets. The company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ and is based in San Francisco. BEI's actuators provide high-performance motion control for machinery. The company also makes brushless DC motors, ideal for sterile environments. Through the Duncan Electronics Division, BEI supplies position sensors to the automotive industry for greater comfort in seating as well as improved control through steering sensors. 

These devices also are used in agricultural equipment, drilling rigs, and medical equipment. BEI's inertial sensors use the company's GyroChip technology to provide stabilization, flight control, and guidance for the automotive, medical, aerospace, defense, and communications markets. The company's extensive line of rotary optical encoders uses a glass codewheel to measure motion, and the information then is translated into an electronic signal. BEI encoders are used in a broad range of industrial, office automation, instrumentation, military, and space applications. Displacement sensors use a fiber-optic probe to reflect light from a target surface to accurately measure displacements. BEI offers subsystems, combining controllers, and amplifiers to create a one-stop approach in providing motion-control systems used in highly automated robotic and pick-and-place applications. 

Finally, BEI manufactures miniscule silicon micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), using micro-machining techniques. MEMS devices, both electrical and mechanical, are used in products such as pressure sensors, automotive anti-skid sensors, and air bag deployment sensors.