As the company enters a new chapter, we sat down with our newly appointed CEO, Mike Hall, to discuss his vision, priorities, and the challenges ahead. In this conversation, he shares insights into his passion for technology, the opportunities on the horizon, and what success will look like for Cambridge Sensoriis in the months and years to come.
Q: Can you walk us through your background ?
I’ve been driven by a passion for creating and inventing from an early age—even building my first bipedal robot at eight. I studied Engineering at the University of Sheffield, graduating with a first-class degree, and initially considered pursuing a PhD focused on fractal compression for video in football matches, but ultimately, I chose a different path.
My career has been shaped by following my curiosity across a wide range of technologies. I’ve worked on developments spanning 4G, femtocells, and software-defined modems, as well as AI-driven sleep-sensing headphones based on polysomnographic data, and immersive AR and VR applications in gaming. Throughout these shifts, one constant has been my enthusiasm for algorithm development and digital signal processing.
Q: What led you to focus on radar?
I started working on automotive millimetre-wave radar through freelance work, and it immediately stood out as an exciting and highly adaptable technology. Not long after, I began collaborating with Steve Clark (CEO of Sensoriis), where we looked at its potential for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) applications.
Q: You are the inventor of ARC (Active Co-operating Radar), with your name on the patent—how did the idea come about?
Like many innovations, ARC emerged from an early setback. We initially developed a co-operative radar system that relied on one radar detecting a retroreflector, which would then communicate its position back to a second radar. In practice, the system proved unreliable, as it was easily confused by other reflections.
A key limitation was the lack of true synchronisation. That led me to develop the idea of a synthetic echo—where one end of the radar effectively behaves like a modulating reflector. Getting the devices to perform as intended was challenging, but I was confident in the approach. After around six months of experimenting with low-cost, off-the-shelf automotive radar components, I achieved surprisingly strong results, including centimetre-level accuracy, which resulted in a genuinely novel system.
Q: What advantages does ARC have over other existing landing systems?
If you look at camera-based systems, radar has a fundamental advantage in that it can directly measure range, rather than inferring it through object recognition or visual cues. This makes it inherently more reliable for precise positioning.
Also, radar is a wide beam technology, as opposed to LiDAR, which makes it more robust in challenging conditions— being jostled around in wind for example. Plus, our use of ‘collaborative’ radar (end-to-end co-operation and data exchange between airborne and ground-based devices) allows the system to effectively “lock in” to its target, ensuring it is both reliably identified and securely authenticated. That end-to-end connectivity means no distraction from nearby background infrastructure ‘clutter’, making the solution extremely reliable and accurate, plus lends itself to being used for CONOPS messaging and alerts.
Overall, ARC strikes an optimal balance between performance, security, reliability and cost. Combined with the extent of its development and testing, which is a key component in my philosophy behind ARC, it offers a highly resilient solution for navigating the critical final metres of landing and tethering at large distances.
Q: Now you’ve stepped into the CEO role, what is your vision for Cambridge Sensoriis and ARC?
I want to set the global standard for ultra-reliable drone operations, making safe take-off and landing possible in even the most complex and unpredictable environments.
For our customers, reliability goes beyond consistently precise landings. We’re focused on building systems that can support long-term, autonomous operation—monitoring their own condition and surroundings to ensure durability and performance. That includes identifying issues like debris build-up on the devices that may require maintenance or responding dynamically to changing conditions such as a passing storm to help protect the infrastructure they operate on.
While we will always prioritise reliability over expanding capabilities, we’re also exploring new frontiers such as non-cooperative landing scenarios—situations where dedicated landing infrastructure isn’t available. This could include unexpected landings or operations on private property, such as for delivery services. In these cases, a degree of obstacle detection is required, and privacy becomes a key concern, which is where radar offers a clear advantage over camera-based systems. It also brings inherent strengths like effective operation in low light and adverse weather, making it well suited to these more challenging use cases.
Q: Any final thoughts to leave us with?
Up to now, we’ve been seen primarily as a pioneering technology company. But customer acquisition in over 10 countries and associated learning have enabled us to evolve into something more practical and impactful – we’re delivering real value to the drone industry right now, by providing a trusted platform for take-off, tethering, and landing and this is just the beginning.
Our customers already have a lot to manage. With Sensoriis, they don’t need to think about this critical phase of operation – they know they can rely on us to handle it with consistency and confidence.