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Roke Manor Research

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Coordinates: 50°59′56″N 1°31′13″W / 50.9990°N 1.5202°W / 50.9990; -1.5202
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Roke Manor Research
Company typeLimited Company
Founded1956
HeadquartersRomsey, United Kingdom
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Paul MacGregor, Managing Director
Ian Cooper, Finance Director
Number of employees
828 (2022)[1]
ParentChemring Group PLC[2]
Websiteroke.co.uk Edit this at Wikidata

Roke, legally Roke Manor Research Ltd, is a British company based at Roke Manor near Romsey, Hampshire, which conducts research and development in the fields of communications, networks, electronic sensors, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, Military decision support consultancy and operational analysis, information assurance, and human science. In addition to supporting its parent Chemring, 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 ball tracker,[3] 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 company to operate as a dedicated research and development centre, with mass production elsewhere, and later owned for almost 20 years by Siemens where it had a similar research role.

History

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  • 1956 – Founded as Plessey Research Roke Manor Limited by the Plessey company.[4] The first managing director was Harold J. Finden, an electrical engineer at Plessey.
  • 1990 – Passed to GEC-Siemens AG in a joint takeover.
  • 1991 – Became wholly owned by Siemens AG when GEC sold their 50% shareholding to Siemens Plessey Electronic Systems.
  • 2010 – Acquired by the Chemring Group PLC.[5][6]
  • 2021 – Roke made its first acquisition since the founding in 1956, acquiring Cubica Technology Ltd. and their holding company Cubica Group.[7]

Sites

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The company's head office is at Roke Manor, Hampshire. It also has facilities in the Barnwood area of Gloucester and at MediaCityUK, Salford, Greater Manchester.[8]

The Roke Manor site is based around a manor house which dates in part from 1653.[9] The 22-acre (8.9 ha) 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, many of the original buildings have been demolished and much of the grounds covered by purpose-built facilities and car parking. The main house, entrance lodge and walled garden remain.[10]

Technology timeline

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Selected products

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  • RESOLVE – an electronic warfare manpack system for the intercept, geolocation and exploitation of tactical communications signals within the HF to SHF bands.[16] In 2011 RESOLVE won a Queen's Award for Enterprise and Innovation.[17][18]
  • Vigilance – a wide area multilateration system for tracking aircraft. Users include Eurocontrol, in support of RVSM.[19]
  • Miniature Radar Altimeters (MRA) – a range of MRA products primarily designed for use on airborne targets and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).[20][21]
  • Epsilon – a software tool designed to predict the radar cross section (RCS) of a target directly from its geometrical description.
  • IRIS – Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) equipment.[22]
  • LOCATE – a suite of products for spectrum monitoring, direction finding, adaptive beamforming and geolocation of HF signals.[23]
  • LOCATE-T – team-based mobile version of the LOCATE system.[24]
  • VIPER – electronic warfare planning and data triage.[25]
  • DAMARC – data science in policing.[26]
  • NELSON – driving Royal Navy digitisation.[27]
  • gekko – surface wave sensing.[28]
  • RESOLVE – bespoke lightweight dismounted close quarter Electronic Surveillance pack.[29]
  • 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.[30]
  • Media Miner.[31]

References

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  1. ^ "Chemring Group PLC Trading Update, 6 October 2022". Retrieved 15 October 2022.
  2. ^ "Roke Manor Research – Chemring Group PLC". www.chemring.co.uk. Chemring Group PLC. 2012. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
  3. ^ "About Hawk-Eye". Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
  4. ^ "History of Roke". www.roke.co.uk. Roke Manor Research Limited. 2009. Archived from the original on 6 July 2009. Retrieved 6 July 2009.
  5. ^ Wilson, Amy (11 August 2010). "Chemring buys Roke from Siemens". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  6. ^ "Completion of acquisition of Roke". Chemring Group PLC. 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2010.
  7. ^ "Cubica acquisition by Roke". Roke. 2021. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
  8. ^ "Our locations". Roke. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  9. ^ Raper, Anthony C. (1988). "History of Roke Manor, Romsey" (PDF). romseynet.org.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.
  10. ^ "Roke Manor". Parks & Gardens. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  11. ^ "Recalling Early GaAs MMIC Developments". Microwaves & RF. March 2009. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  12. ^ "Hostile Artillery LOcation (HALO) System". Jane's Information Group. 18 August 2008. Retrieved 16 August 2010. Jane's Military Communications
  13. ^ "The Worldaware Award 2000 for Innovation". Worldaware. Retrieved 9 May 2011.
  14. ^ Hughes, Simon (15 November 2000). "How's that then for hi-tech?". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  15. ^ Owens, N., Harris, C., Stennett, C. (2003). "Hawk-eye tennis system". International Conference on Visual Information Engineering, 2003. VIE 2003.
  16. ^ "RESOLVE tactical EW manpack system". Jane's Information Group. 3 August 2011. Retrieved 25 September 2011.
  17. ^ "Roke Electronic Warfare System Wins Queen's Award for Enterprise". Roke Manor Research Limited. 21 April 2011. Archived from the original on 9 July 2011. Retrieved 21 April 2011.
  18. ^ "A List of the 2011 and Previous Winners of The Queen's Award for Innovation" (PDF). Business Link. 21 April 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 21 April 2011.
  19. ^ Harman, Martin (September 2006). "More Room On Top". Engineering & Technology. IET. doi:10.1049/et:20060604.
  20. ^ "Roke MRA receives ingress protection certification". Shephard Press Limited. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
  21. ^ "The technology behind the Beagle 2 Mars Lander". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  22. ^ "Iris: Pioneering road safety". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  23. ^ "Strategic HF Signals Intelligence". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  24. ^ "LOCATE-T: Advanced mobile Electronic Support". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  25. ^ "VIPER: Electronic warfare planning and data triage". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  26. ^ "DAMARC: Data science in policing". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  27. ^ "NELSON: Driving Royal Navy digitisation". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  28. ^ "gekko: surface wave sensing". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  29. ^ "RESOLVE-Tactical Solution". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  30. ^ "High Mobility Electronic Warfare Capability (HMEWC)". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  31. ^ "Video image search with Media Miner". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
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50°59′56″N 1°31′13″W / 50.9990°N 1.5202°W / 50.9990; -1.5202

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