•Notícia

How a hobby became a business. At the head of Ingenia is a team of engineers from the UPC. Three of them studied telecommunications at the School of Telecommunications Engineering of Barcelona (ETSETB) and one studied industrial engineering at the School of Industrial Engineering of Barcelona (ETSEIB).

Their interest in robots won them several prizes in robotics competitions while they were studying at the UPC, and now this hobby has become their profession. Ingenia is a company that specializes in inventing, designing, and developing products that control electric motors. “We make the electronic circuit board that controls the motor, but we also write the code it contains and the software that manages it,” explains Marc Vila, one of the four partners who founded the company.

The electronic circuit boards produced by Ingenia are used in low and medium-powered electric motors not exceeding 5 kilowatts and need to have good energy-efficiency results. However, what clients are searching for most of all is precision control.

“Our circuit boards are installed in the humanoid robots” says Vila.  The company has also installed circuit boards non-manned aircraft that carry cameras and require a high degree of precision to focus and frame photographic images.

These are not the only applications: Ingenia also participates in other sectors. In the field of scientific and technical research, it works with laboratory apparatus that functions using several motors. In the industrial field, it works with numerical-control machinery that operates with micrometric exactness. Examples of this are lens-cutting machines for glasses and the machines that cut metal sheets for car doors.

As well as the first European humanoid robot, Ingenia has also cooperated with another cutting-edge technology project. The European Space Agency was looking for a way to be able to maintain the position of antennas directed towards satellites. “They are directional antennas that emit signals more intensely in one particular direction. The most important thing is that the motor should maintain the position of the antennas efficiently even if there are strong gusts of wind,” adds Marc Vila.

He explains that the applications, products and services provided by Ingenia are largely designed for small research companies at the forefront of technological progress. “We are looking for limited series or prototypes because our product is not designed for mass-market consumption.”

It has not been easy for them to get to where they are now. Before founding Ingenia, they all worked in other companies. “We never really gave up on the idea of creating our own company. The period when we participated in the robotics competitions gave us the impetus and a few years later we put together all our ideas, saw that they could form a business venture and took the plunge,” says Vila. 

The young engineer admits that it was difficult to secure funding. “This type of business does not make a product for mass-market consumption. Either the government helps you, or you sink. Sometimes this type of activity can become a driving force for progress, because many other activities come out of it and they do reach the mass market, create jobs and help the country make technological progress. We’re aware that we won’t generate a spectacular volume of business and that we won’t employ a great number of people, but that’s how it is when you do research and innovation work; you open up paths that lead to jobs and businesses later.”

These enterprising young men are already looking for a way of opening up new paths. They are improving the standard electronic circuit board for controlling electric motors in response to the suggestions made by their clients and aim to put a new model on the market in eighteen months’ time.