
Spectris boosts HBK with piezoelectric sensor business
Spectris in London has completed the $82m (£66m, €82m) acquisition of Dytran Instruments, merging it with the Hottinger Brüel & Kjær (HBK) business.
California-based Dytran is a designer and manufacturer of piezoelectric sensors that measure vibration, force, and pressure. It also offers a sensing line with 6DoF sensors, MEMS accelerometers, digital smart sensors and a custom sensor operation.
Dytran’s sensors are used in product development testing and embedded monitoring solutions in space, aerospace, industrial, and automotive applications. This sits well with the acoustic sensors from Brüel & Kjær in Denmark and accelerometers from Hottinger Baldwin Messtechnik in Germany which were merged in July 2019 to form HBK.
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With its largest market in North America, Dytran will enable HBK to increase market penetration and build sales in the region. At the same time, HBK’s global presence will extend the reach of Dytran products and support worldwide.
“Dytran is an excellent addition to HBK, bringing complementary technology and strengthening our sensor offering to customers in the fast-growing accelerometer market,” said Andrew Heath, Chief Executive of Spectris. “The combination will strengthen HBK’s position in the US aerospace, space and defence industries, as well as accelerate Dytran’s revenue by leveraging HBK’s existing global sales channels. We look forward to welcoming the Dytran team to HBK and providing our customers with a wider portfolio of accelerometers and solutions, helping to enhance their products and development programmes.”
In July, Spectris sold off its Omega Engineering business to Arcline Investment Management for $525m, leaving three businesses: Malvern Panalytical, HBK and Industrial Solutions, focused on high precision measurement.
It also acquired Concurrent Real-Time for high-performance, real-time computational hardware and software solutions. This was also integrated into HBK to grow its simulator platform businesses and fully integrate hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) technology. Concurrent Real-Time, together with VI-grade and Imtec Engineering, will constitute the Virtual Test Division within HBK to provide test products throughout the entire development cycle.
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