Roke Manor Research Ltd (trading as Roke) is a British technology and engineering company based at Roke Manor near Romsey, Hampshire. The company operates in the defence, national security and geospatial intelligence industries with clients in the public and private sector. Roke conducts research and development for technical areas including communications, electronic sensors, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science.
The company has been part of the Chemring Group PLC[3][4] since 2010. It was originally an arm of Plessey[5] and later of Siemens,[6] during which time it operated primarily as a research facility.
History
1956: Founded as Plessey Research Roke Manor Limited by the Plessey company.[7] The first managing director was Harold J. Finden, an electrical engineer at Plessey.
October 2023: Awarded £40 million UK MoD contract under British Army's Land ISTAR programme as part of Project ZODIAC.[11]
April 2025: Awarded £251 million UK Missile Defence Research contract for Project STORM.[12][13]
September 2025: Awarded £20 million British Army contract to optimise Project ZODIAC.[14]
Sites
Roke's headquarters are at Roke Manor in Hampshire. The site is centred on a manor house dating partly to the 17th century, and was acquired by Plessey in 1956. Some original buildings remain alongside research facilities constructed on the site.
The company also operates facilities in Gloucester,[15] Woking,[16] and Manchester[17]
1995: Development of the Hostile Artillery Location System (HALO), an acoustic detection system used for monitoring artillery activity, including during the Yugoslav conflicts.[19]
2000: Won the 2000 Worldaware Innovation Award for work on land mine clearance.[20]
2001: Early development of the vision-based components that contributed to the Hawk-Eye ball tracking system.[21][22]
2006: Developed Vigilance, a wide area multilateration system for tracking aircraft.[23]
2025: EM-Vis Deceive Electromagnetic Attack (EA) system launched.[24]
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