Ottó Bánhegyi

After graduating from university, he was employed at the Telephone Factory, where, in addition to the domestic development of NC (Numerical Control) machines, he also became involved in the development of the vacuum tube and relay office machine, the EDLA. The latter (based on the idea of Tibor Szentiványi) had a floppy disk memory (the ancestor of the floppy used between 1970-1990), which he developed together with his colleagues.

After 1963, due to a government decision, due to specialization within the KMST, the entire Hungarian computer production was transferred to Videoton, for which reason in 1964 the entire team transferred to the Electric Automation Design Institute (Vilati); here he headed the Development Office. Among other things, they developed a floppy information recording memory, which was, however, pushed out of the market by the 8″ paper bag floppy that had appeared in the meantime; however, based on the experience, they very quickly developed a successful floppy information recording and collection family: the Prepamat and Floppymat devices.

In Vilati, the NC control profile brought over from the Telephone Factory was expanded: they began manufacturing NC-controlled industrial electronic equipment, then developing computer equipment and machine tool controls.
The first domestic UNIMERIC 100 control device was presented at the BNV in 1966. This was followed by the UNIMERIC 121, made for a lathe, in 1969, and the integrated circuit version, the UNIMERIC З00, in 1971. All three types were mainly installed on Csepel lathes, and were sold primarily domestically and in socialist countries (in the 2010s, nearly 40 units were still in operation in Slovakia and Poland).
In addition to microcomputer-controlled machine tools, they also worked on robot control and control equipment for large astronomical instruments.

The creation of increasingly modern controls required not only developments, but also the implementation and introduction of new technologies used in construction. This justified - among other things - the acquisition of a machine tool control license from the Italian company San Giorgio, which concerned not only the production of equipment, but mainly printed circuits. It also played a decisive role in its implementation.

He participated in the development of several studies of the National Technical Development Committee (OMFB) as an external expert.

After the 1990s, he was the managing director of Kreutler Vilati Systems Kft. (KVS). One of the parent companies was a Karlsruhe company. Under his leadership, KVS won an international tender in 1993 for the implementation of the National Police Headquarters' operation control system. A model and training center was established at the 3rd District Police Headquarters, while a fire department operation control center was implemented at the Veszprém County Fire Department.

He was an invited lecturer at the Budapest University of Technology (BME), the Miskolc University of Technology for Heavy Industry (NME), and the Kandó Kálmán Technical College (KKMF). He also held several professional training courses.
He had numerous publications; he was the author of university notes, a regular speaker at national and international conferences, and he held several patents.

He was a member of the Mechanical Engineering Scientific Association (GTE), the Materials Science and Technology Scientific Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Robotics Department of the National Academy of Sciences.

His awards: Excellent Worker (Minister of Metallurgy and Mechanical Industry, 1966); the Medal of Merit for Service to the Homeland, gold grade (1970); For Excellent Work (1983, 1985).