IEN Europe: Lika Electronic is a well-known name. Could you provide a brief overview of the company's history and product range?
Marco Calabrese: Lika Electronic was founded in 1982 in Italy and has since grown into a leading manufacturer of encoders, actuators, and displays for industrial automation. Over the last four decades, the company has built a strong reputation for delivering reliable and innovative motion control solutions, with a focus on supporting a wide range of automation and robotics applications. Today, Lika combines long-standing expertise with continuous innovation to meet the evolving needs of global industries.
In addition to its strong standard product range, Lika is also recognized for its ability to engineer customized solutions for demanding applications, making it a trusted partner worldwide.
IEN Europe: Bogen Magnetics has been part of the Lika Electronic group for a number of years. How did that process start, and what benefits does it bring to you as a company, as well as to Lika and Bogen customers?
Marco Calabrese: Bogen Magnetics, founded in 1951 in Germany, became part of the Lika Electronic group in 2020. The integration brought together two complementary portfolios: Lika’s expertise in encoders, measurement systems, and motion control, and Bogen’s specialization in high-precision magnetic measurement technologies. By combining our R&D teams, we accelerate innovation and share technical know-how across both companies. For customers, this means a broader range of solutions, seamless integration of technologies, and faster time-tomarket with tailor-made products.
It also brings together complementary measurement technologies, enhancing our ability to provide high-precision solutions across many applications.
IEN Europe: Please describe the main industry areas your product range covers and the main trends it has to address.
Marco Calabrese: Our solutions are widely used in factory automation, robotics, handling systems, medical technology, aerospace, and renewable energy. Right now, robotics is a key growth area where precision, reliability, and compact form factors are essential. Across all industries, the biggest trends we see are customization and integration. Customers expect solutions that fit perfectly into their systems, both in terms of size and performance, and this is where our combined portfolio delivers clear advantages.
Lika’s digital-ready encoders, together with Bogen’s high-precision sensors, support Industry 4.0 applications, enabling smarter, networked automation solutions.
IEN Europe: Off-the-shelf products cannot cover all industrial needs. What can you offer potential customers with more specific requirements?
Marco Calabrese: We understand that standard products often don’t cover the specific needs of complex applications. That’s why Lika and Bogen offer customized encoders, magnetic tapes, and rings. From OEM projects to special form factors or unique tolerances, we provide tailor-made solutions that help customers achieve higher performance and lower integration effort.
This approach ensures that we are not only a supplier of products, but a true engineering partner, working side by side with our customers to create the best solution for their application.
IEN Europe: There have been significant developments in the field of automation and robotics in recent years. Which of your products are involved in these innovations, and what do they offer to support the trends?
Marco Calabrese: In robotics and automation, precision and compactness are key. As Lika Electronic, we offer a wide range of bearingless kit encoders, such as the AMM20, AMM33, AMM36, and SMAR1. These encoders are designed for direct integration into robotic joints and other compact systems, where they provide high resolution and reliability while keeping the overall design lightweight and space-saving. Their versatility makes them particularly suitable for collaborative and humanoid robots.
From the Bogen side, our customized magnetic rings and tapes are widely used in robotic joints and motion control systems, where they ensure highly accurate positioning. Our miniaturized sensors, such as the AKP18 and IKP11, are designed to integrate seamlessly into spaceconstrained systems, enabling lightweight and flexible robotic designs. Together with Lika’s encoder technologies, we provide a complete toolkit to support the new generation of collaborative and humanoid robots.
IEN Europe: Are the demands on your products changing due to the trend of robots leaving industrial shop floors to be deployed in agricultural applications, or in various areas of service robotics in more or less humanoid shapes?
Marco Calabrese: Yes, absolutely. When robots move beyond controlled shop-floor environments, the requirements become tougher. At Bogen Magnetics, for example, we engineer magnetic rings and sensors that are designed to thrive under challenging conditions — from exposure to dust and moisture in agricultural robotics, to high speeds and precision demands in service robots and humanoids. Robustness, compact design, and high reliability are the qualities that make our products suitable for these diverse and demanding environments.
On the Lika side, our encoders are increasingly adapted to withstand harsh conditions as well, ensuring long-lasting performance even outside traditional industrial settings.
Our solutions are also proven in harsh industrial and demanding environments such as offshore platforms, steel mills, and aerospace applications, where extreme temperatures, vibrations, and space constraints require uncompromising performance.
IEN Europe: You are a long-standing SPS exhibitor. What highlights and news should visitors not miss at your stand in 2025? Marco Calabrese: At SPS 2025, we will highlight our capabilities in customization, showing how we adapt our encoders, sensors, and magnetic systems to the specific needs of different industries. Visitors will be able to see how Lika and Bogen technologies complement each other to create complete solutions for robotics, automation, and beyond. We are also preparing product news and demos that will showcase our most recent developments in miniaturized and application-specific designs. In addition to these highlights, we will present a selection of special, custom-designed products that we have developed for individual customer applications. At the same time, our complete product range will be exhibited on our product wall, giving visitors the chance to explore both our standard solutions and our unique custom offerings in one place.
IEN Europe: Thank you for these insights, Mr. Calabrese.
Exhibitor sps 2025: Hall 4a, 325
