The
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) was a scientific research establishment within the
Ministry of DefenceThe Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, located primarily at
MalvernThis article is about the area governed by the civil parish and its environs. For the town centre see Great MalvernMalvern is an urban area in Worcestershire, England...
in
WorcestershireWorcestershire or ; abbreviated Worcs) is a historic and administrative county located in the West Midlands region of central England. In 1974 it was merged with the county of Herefordshire to form the single administrative county of Hereford and Worcester; which was divided in 1998,...
. It was formed in 1976 in an amalgamation of earlier research establishments including the
Royal Radar EstablishmentThe Royal Radar Establishment, or RRE, was a renaming of the Radar Research Establishment, which was formed in 1953 from the merger of the Telecommunications Research Establishment and the Radar Research and Development Establishment . The RRE was based in Malvern, Worcestershire, England, where...
(RRE). In 1979 it merged with the Services Electronic Research Laboratory (SERL) formerly at
BaldockBaldock is a town in the local government district of North Hertfordshire in the ceremonial county of Hertfordshire, England where the River Ivel rises. It lies north of London, southwest of Bedford, and north northwest of the county town of Hertford...
and the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE) formerly at Christchurch.
The
Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) was a scientific research establishment within the
Ministry of DefenceThe Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, located primarily at
MalvernThis article is about the area governed by the civil parish and its environs. For the town centre see Great MalvernMalvern is an urban area in Worcestershire, England...
in
WorcestershireWorcestershire or ; abbreviated Worcs) is a historic and administrative county located in the West Midlands region of central England. In 1974 it was merged with the county of Herefordshire to form the single administrative county of Hereford and Worcester; which was divided in 1998,...
. It was formed in 1976 in an amalgamation of earlier research establishments including the
Royal Radar EstablishmentThe Royal Radar Establishment, or RRE, was a renaming of the Radar Research Establishment, which was formed in 1953 from the merger of the Telecommunications Research Establishment and the Radar Research and Development Establishment . The RRE was based in Malvern, Worcestershire, England, where...
(RRE). In 1979 it merged with the Services Electronic Research Laboratory (SERL) formerly at
BaldockBaldock is a town in the local government district of North Hertfordshire in the ceremonial county of Hertfordshire, England where the River Ivel rises. It lies north of London, southwest of Bedford, and north northwest of the county town of Hertford...
and the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE) formerly at Christchurch. There were out-stations at the ex-RAF airfields at
DeffordRAF Defford was a Royal Air Force station in Worcestershire, England during the Second World War.Construction of RAF Defford was completed in 1941, and for a few months the airfield was used as a satellite station by the Wellington bombers of 23 Operational Training Unit , based a few miles away...
and
PershorePershore is a small market town in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Avon. Pershore is in the Wychavon district and is part of the West Worcestershire parliamentary constituency. At the 2001 census the population of Pershore was 7,304...
.
In April 1991 RSRE amalgamated with other defence research establishments to form the
Defence Research AgencyThe Defence Research Agency , was an executive agency of the UK Ministry of Defence from April 1991 until April 1995...
, which in April 1995 amalgamated with more organisations to form the
Defence Evaluation and Research AgencyThe Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was a part of the UK Ministry of Defence until July 2, 2001. At the time it was the United Kingdom's largest science and technology organisation...
.
In June 2001 this became independent of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) with approximately two thirds being incorporated into a
commercialCommerce is a division of trade or production which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information, or money between two or more entities...
company,
QinetiQQinetiQ is an international defence technology company, formed from the greater part of the former UK government agency, Defence Evaluation and Research Agency , when it was split up in June 2001...
, owned by the MoD and the remainder into the fully government owned laboratory,
DSTLThe Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is an Executive Agency of the UK Ministry of Defence . It operates as a Trading Fund, owned by the Secretary of State for Defence, Bob Ainsworth...
. In 2003, the
Carlyle GroupThe Carlyle Group is a global private equity investment firm, based in Washington, D.C., with more than $84.5 billion of equity capital under management, diversified over 64 different funds as of March 31, 2009. The firm operates four fund families, focusing on leveraged buyouts, growth capital,...
bought a private equity stake (~30%) in QinetiQ.
Some of the most important technologies developed from work at RSRE are
radarRadar is an object detection system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The term RADAR was coined in 1941 as an acronym for RAdio Detection And...
, thermal imaging,
liquid crystal displayA liquid crystal display is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures...
s and
speech synthesisSpeech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
.
Contributions to computer science made by the RSRE included Algol68R (one of the first viable implementations of Algol68), the VIPER high integrity microprocessor and the
ELLAELLA is a Hardware description language and support toolset. Developed by the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment during the 1980s and 90s.Includes tools to perform:* design transformation* symbolic simulations* formal verification- Sample :...
hardware description language.
The RSRE motto was
Ubique Sentio (
latinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
for
I sense everywhere).
External links