Founder Franz Baumgartner Brands POSITAL, VITECTOR Founded 1918 Parent organization Fraba B.V. | Area served Worldwide Number of employees 200 worldwide (2013) Number of locations 5 | |
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Key people Franz Baumgartner - Founder
Christian Leeser - CEO Products Position sensors and motion sensors Profiles | ||
FRABA is a worldwide company founded in Germany. The company manufactures products for fabrication and process automation and is specialized in sensor manufacturing, for example sensors which are used in windmills and heavy machinery. The company holds several patents of encoder innovation. Until the 1960s, FRABA’s main product was mechanical relays. In 1963 the company started selling brush rotary encoders, leading to the development of the first optical rotary encoder in 1971 and the magnetic multi turn rotary encoder in 2007.
History
FRABA was founded by Franz Baumgartner in 1918 as the FRABA Fabrik elektr. Apparate GmbH. Until the 1960s,FRABA’s main product was the mechanical relay. In 1963 they started selling “brush” absolute encoders and in 1973, one of the first non-contact, optical absolute rotary encoders was produced in the FRABA offices in Cologne.