Roke Manor Research

Roke Manor Research

Type	Limited Company
Founded	1956
Headquarters	Romsey, United Kingdom
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	David Cole, Managing Director Ian Cooper, Finance Director
Number of employees	Approximately 475 (2006)
Parent	Chemring Group PLC[1]
Website	www.roke.co.uk

Roke Manor Research Limited is a UK company based at Roke Manor in Romsey, Hampshire. It is a contract research and development business for communications, networks, and electronic sensors. In addition to supporting Chemring, work is also conducted in both the public and private sectors. The company also created Hawk-Eye ^[2] which is now used widely in sports such as tennis and cricket.

Roke has been part of the Chemring Group since 2010, having been initially founded as part of the Plessey company and then subsequently owned for almost 20 years by Siemens.

Company history

• 1956 - Founded as Plessey Research Roke Manor Limited by the Plessey company.^[3] 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 - Roke was acquired by the Chemring Group PLC.^[4][5]

Technology

• 1960 - Working prototype memory systems developed for the then supercomputer, Atlas.
• 1975 - Designed and developed the world's first monolithic Gallium Arsenide microwave circuit.^[6]
• 1995 - Work began on the Hostile Artillery LOcation system (HALO), an acoustic locator of guns and mortars. HALO was developed to monitor ceasefire violations in the Yugoslav wars, and is in use with the British Army and other nations.^[7]
• 2000 - Won the 2000 Worldaware Innovation Award for work on land mine clearance.^[8]
• 2001 - Developed the Hawk-Eye vision-based ball tracking system.^[9][10]

Products

• RESOLVE - an electronic warfare manpack system for the intercept, geolocation and exploitation of tactical communications signals within the HF to SHF bands.^[11] In 2011 RESOLVE won a Queen's Award for Enterprise and Innovation.^[12][13]
• Vigilance - a wide area multilateration system for tracking aircraft. Users include Eurocontrol, in support of RVSM.^[14]
• Miniature Radar Altimeters (MRA) - a range of MRA products primarily designed for use on Airborne Targets and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).^[15]
• Epsilon - a software tool designed to predict the Radar Cross Section (RCS) of a target directly from its geometrical description.
• LOCATE - a suite of integrated products for spectrum monitoring, direction finding, adaptive beamforming and geolocation of HF signals.^[16]

References

1. "Roke Manor Research - Chemring Group PLC". www.chemring.co.uk. Chemring Group PLC. 2012. Retrieved 2012-03-26.
2. "About Hawk-Eye". Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
3. "History of Roke". www.roke.co.uk. Roke Manor Research Limited. 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
4. Wilson, Amy (2010-08-11). "Chemring buys Roke from Siemens". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
5. "Completion of acquisition of Roke". Chemring Group PLC. 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
6. "Recalling Early GaAs MMIC Developments". Microwaves & RF. March 2009. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
7. "Hostile Artillery LOcation (HALO) System". Jane's Information Group. 2008-08-18. Retrieved 2010-08-16. Jane's Military Communications
8. "The Worldaware Award 2000 for Innovation". Worldaware. Retrieved 9 May 2011.
9. Hughes, Simon (2000-11-15). "How's that then for hi-tech?". London: Telegraph. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
10. Owens, N., Harris, C., Stennett, C. (2003). "Hawk-eye tennis system". International Conference on Visual Information Engineering, 2003. VIE 2003.
11. "RESOLVE tactical EW manpack system". Jane's Information Group. 2011-08-03. Retrieved 2011-09-25.
12. "Roke Electronic Warfare System Wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise". Roke Manor Research Limited. 2011-04-21. Retrieved 2011-04-21.
13. "A List of the 2011 and Previous Winners of The Queen's Award for Innovation" (PDF). Business Link. 2011-04-21. Retrieved 2011-04-21.
14. Harman, Martin (September 2006). "More Room On Top". Engineering & Technology (IET).
15. "Roke MRA receives ingress protection certification". Shephard Press Limited. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
16. "LOCATE - Strategic HF Signals Intelligence". Roke Manor Research Limited. Retrieved 24 June 2011.

External links

• Roke Manor Research Limited

Coordinates: 50°59′57″N 1°31′13″W / 50.999044°N 1.520179°W