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Roke Manor Research Limited is a British company based at
Roke Manor Roke Manor is a 17th-century manor house approximately north-west of Romsey in Hampshire, England. The house and grounds are the headquarters of Roke Manor Research Ltd, a subsidiary of Chemring Group. History The first known reference ...
near
Romsey Romsey ( ) is a historic market town in the county of Hampshire, England. Romsey was home to the 17th-century philosopher and economist William Petty and the 19th-century British prime minister, Lord Palmerston, whose statue has stood in the ...
, Hampshire, which conducts research and development in the fields of
communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
,
networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...
, electronic
sensors A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...
,
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...
,
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...
,
data science Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a br ...
, Military decision support consultancy and operational analysis, information assurance, and
human science Human science (or human sciences in the plural), also known as humanistic social science and moral science (or moral sciences), studies the philosophical, biological, social, and cultural aspects of human life. Human science aims to expand our u ...
. In addition to supporting its parent
Chemring Chemring Group is a global business providing a range of advanced technology products and services to the aerospace, defence and security markets. Chemring has extensive operations in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia. The company was ...
, Roke undertakes contract research and development, and product development work for both public and private sector customers. Products developed from research at Roke Manor include the
Hawk-Eye Hawk-Eye is a computer vision system used in numerous sports such as cricket, tennis, Gaelic football, badminton, hurling, rugby union, association football and volleyball, to visually track the trajectory of the ball and display a profile of ...
ball tracker, which is now used widely in sports such as tennis, football, and cricket. Roke has been part of the Chemring Group since 2010, having been founded as part of the
Plessey The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after World War II by acquisition of companies and formed overseas compan ...
company to operate as a dedicated research and development centre, with mass production elsewhere, and later owned for almost 20 years by
Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...
where it had a similar research role.


History

*1956 – Founded as Plessey Research Roke Manor Limited by the
Plessey The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after World War II by acquisition of companies and formed overseas compan ...
company. The first managing director was Harold J. Finden, an electrical engineer at Plessey. *1990 – Passed to GEC-
Siemens AG Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...
in a joint takeover. *1991 – Became wholly owned by
Siemens AG Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...
when GEC sold their 50% shareholding to Siemens Plessey Electronic Systems. *2010 – Acquired by the Chemring Group PLC. *2021 – Roke made its first acquisition since the founding in 1956, acquiring Cubica Technology Ltd. and their holding company Cubica Group.


Sites

The company's head office is at
Roke Manor Roke Manor is a 17th-century manor house approximately north-west of Romsey in Hampshire, England. The house and grounds are the headquarters of Roke Manor Research Ltd, a subsidiary of Chemring Group. History The first known reference ...
, Hampshire. It also has facilities in the
Barnwood Barnwood is an eastern suburb of Gloucester, lying about from the centre of the city, and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Gloucester, in the Gloucester district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Barnwood was origi ...
area of
Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east o ...
and at
MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside Media ...
,
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
, Greater Manchester. The Roke Manor site is based around a
manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals ...
which dates in part from 1653. The grounds had a walled garden, stable block and cottages when bought by Plessey in 1956, and initially these were re-used for laboratory space and meeting rooms, but in various modernization programmes, all the original buildings except the Manor House have been demolished and much of the grounds covered by purpose-built facilities and car parking.


Technology timeline

*1960 – Working prototype memory systems developed for the
supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructio ...
,
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geogra ...
. *1975 – Designed and developed the world's first monolithic
gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monolithic microwave integrated c ...
microwave circuit. *1995 – Work began on the Hostile Artillery LOcation system (HALO), an acoustic locator of guns and
mortars Mortar may refer to: * Mortar (weapon), an indirect-fire infantry weapon * Mortar (masonry), a material used to fill the gaps between blocks and bind them together * Mortar and pestle, a tool pair used to crush or grind * Mortar, Bihar, a villag ...
. HALO was developed to monitor
ceasefire A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state ac ...
violations in the
Yugoslav wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...
, and is in use with the
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkha ...
and other nations. *2000 – Won the 2000 Worldaware Innovation Award for work on
land mine A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
clearance. *2001 – Developed the
Hawk-Eye Hawk-Eye is a computer vision system used in numerous sports such as cricket, tennis, Gaelic football, badminton, hurling, rugby union, association football and volleyball, to visually track the trajectory of the ball and display a profile of ...
vision-based ball tracking system.


Selected products

* RESOLVE – an
electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponent ...
manpack system for the intercept, geolocation and exploitation of tactical communications signals within the HF to SHF bands. In 2011 RESOLVE won a Queen's Award for Enterprise and Innovation. * Vigilance – a wide area
multilateration Trilateration is the use of distances (or "ranges") for determining the unknown position coordinates of a point of interest, often around Earth (geopositioning). When more than three distances are involved, it may be called multilateration, for e ...
system for tracking aircraft. Users include Eurocontrol, in support of
RVSM Reduced vertical separation minimum (RVSM) is the reduction, from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet, of the standard vertical separation required between aircraft flying between flight level 290 (29,000  ft) and flight level 410 (41,000 ft). Expr ...
. * Miniature Radar Altimeters (MRA) – a range of MRA products primarily designed for use on airborne targets and
unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controll ...
s (UAVs). * Epsilon – a software tool designed to predict the
radar cross section Radar cross-section (RCS), also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. ...
(RCS) of a target directly from its geometrical description. * IRIS – Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) equipment. * LOCATE – a suite of products for spectrum monitoring,
direction finding Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), isin accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)defined as radio location that uses the reception of radio waves to determine the direction in which a radio stati ...
, adaptive beamforming and
geolocation Geopositioning, also known as geotracking, geolocalization, geolocating, geolocation, or geoposition fixing, is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object. Geopositioning yields a set of geographic coordinates ...
of HF signals. * LOCATE-T – team-based mobile version of the LOCATE system. * VIPER – electronic warfare planning and data triage. * DAMARC – data science in policing. * NELSON – driving Royal Navy digitisation. * gekko – surface wave sensing. * RESOLVE – bespoke lightweight dismounted close quarter Electronic Surveillance pack. * HMEWC – High Mobility Electronic Warfare Capability (HMEWC) with integrated Command & Control, Electronic Surveillance and Electronic Attack, capable of operating in complex and contested RF environments. * Media Miner.


References


External links

* {{coord, 50.9990, N, 1.5202, W, display=title, region:GB-HAM_type:landmark Technology companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Hampshire Technology companies established in 1956 British companies established in 1956 Plessey