Motor & Sensor Production in a Pleasant Factory
Tamagawa Seiki, founded in 1938, has long run a thriving business as a maker of precision parts. The company got its start by manufacturing oil gauges for fighter planes, but now it develops and produces a wide range of precision parts including angle sensors, gyros, servomotors and step motors which are sold to makers of robots, machine tools, aircraft, military hardware and more. Since recently, Tamagawa Seiki’s resolvers (rotation angle detection sensors) have been used in power steering motors for hybrid vehicles (HVs) and electric vehicles (EVs).
Tamagawa Seiki entered the space business in the mid-1980s, starting with gyros used for the H-I rocket’s inertial navigation, followed by the development and manufacture of motors, encoders, resolvers and other equipment used in a variety of satellites and probes. The company’s products are also used in Kibo, the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) on the International Space Station (ISS), and Konotori, the space station supply ship.
Tamagawa Seiki manufactures its aeronautics-related products at the First Plant in Iida, Nagano Prefecture, adjacent to the company’s headquarters. The facility was constructed in 1942, when it was called the Iida Plant, and the original buildings still look the same, giving the site a unique charm. The Spacetronics Laboratory, which conducts research and development on astronautics products, is also located on the property.
TAMAGAWA SEIKI CO., LTD.
INTERVIEW
インタビュー
Enhancing Product Lineups
and Supplying Diverse Equipment
TAMAGAWA SEIKI CO., LTD.
Managing Director and First Plant Manager
Hideo Kumagai