News Archives

Ultra Maritime and General Atomics Announce Strategic Partnership to Revolutionize Unmanned Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare

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COLUMBIA CITY, Indiana – General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) and Ultra Maritime are proud to announce a strategic partnership to substantially advance the state of the art in unmanned airborne detection and tracking of enemy submarines. By combining the world’s most advanced and prolific unmanned aerial system (UAS), GA-ASI’s MQ-9B SeaGuardian®, with the world’s only miniaturized, low power sonobuoys and receivers, the strategic partnership will make it possible for the U.S. and its allies to use sophisticated techniques to track submarines in hostile, GPS-denied environments.

As adversary submarines proliferate and become stealthier, unmanned underwater vehicles grow in number and GPS jamming becomes more prevalent, the need for assured and affordable anti-submarine warfare (ASW) solutions is more critical than ever. While unmanned technologies are the clear best solution to this challenge, limitations to date in suitable ASW technologies have prevented real world solutions from emerging. This strategic partnership will provide a significant new capability where small form factor sonobuoys and receivers, aboard a long-range unmanned aircraft, can provide autonomous, low cost ASW in a GPS-denied environment.

The GA-ASI MQ-9B SeaGuardian provides unmatched multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (ISR&T). GA-ASI will integrate the MQ-9B SeaGuardian with Ultra Maritime’s exclusive small form factor (half size) sonobuoys to double UAS capacity. These sonobuoys will provide Multi-static Active (MSA) capabilities achieving unprecedented wide-area search. Furthermore, Ultra Maritime’s new acoustic receivers will be half the traditional size, making them ideal for UAS deployment. The receivers will enable more effective ASW in GPS-denied environments and will monitor more sonobuoys per MQ-9B mission through advanced communications technology. The solution is fully funded by internal research and development, and an integrated operational demonstration of this capability will occur in the Indo Pacific and other theaters beginning in 2025.

Ultra Maritime Showcases Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Improved Anti-Submarine Warfare Mission Effectiveness at the Combined Naval Event 2025

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With the increase in submarine stealthiness and quantity of unmanned platforms, the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission is more important than ever to maintain maritime dominance. At the Combined Naval Event in Farnborough, UK, next week, Ultra Maritime will present its unique technology using Artificial Intelligence (AI) as more than just a passive classifier, but rather used at every stage of the ASW command chain including detection, localization, tracking and automated tactical decision making. Not only can this increase the effectiveness of manned vessels, but can significantly increase the level of autonomy of unmanned vehicles.  

Along with a presentation on this leading AI use, Ultra Maritime will showcase the following at its booth #D36:

Sea Spear – New Lightweight Deployable Sonar
Introduced to the world at Sea Air Space 2025 and being used in partnership with Anduril’s Seabed Sentry to communicate critical subsea information in real time, Ultra Maritime will highlight Sea Spear, a first-of-its-kind lightweight deployable sonar system that enhances submarine detection capabilities rapidly and inexpensively. Sea Spear provides a solution for long endurance and long-range surveillance capability and threat monitoring during a time when anti-submarine warfare matters more than ever. Deployable from manned or unmanned surface and underwater platforms, the 21-inch diameter unit expands to create a high-performance, wide-aperture array. Already well into its development phase and in-water testing, full operational demonstration will occur in 2025.

Next Generation Sonobuoys
Ultra Maritime is delivering a new generation of sonobuoys, making significant investments that have fully qualified three new sonobuoy models with two additional qualifications in 2025, and towards creating the factory of the future configured specifically for sonobuoys and made to achieve reliable delivery at the production rate demands of the global market. The new buoys will revolutionize submarine detection technology with unprecedented predictability and detection capabilities, including enhanced battery technology that extends the operational lifespan of active buoys. This breakthrough provides allied navies with a critical edge in undersea warfare, elevating defense operations to a new level of performance.

Ultra Maritime Mission Pod – Containerized Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)
The Ultra Maritime Mission Pod is an extensive advancement in towed array packaging technology that enables smaller manned and unmanned surface vessels to greatly increase their anti-submarine warfare capabilities. This game-changing system houses and deploys towed arrays from a 20-foot ISO container, achieving a genuine modular, flexible and scalable solution for any Navy. The Ultra Maritime Mission Pod allows for ASW capabilities without the need for traditional, large, expensive manned surface combatant platforms.

Surface Ship Torpedo Defense
Ultra Maritime has made significant investment towards creating a complete layered torpedo defense solution comprised of multiple strategies and systems working together to detect and neutralize incoming torpedo threats. This next generation torpedo defense capability combines expendable countermeasures, both soft and hard kill, with towed detection and countermeasures, ensuring the safety of naval vessels from torpedo attacks. This integrated approach to torpedo defense is critical to address the growing submarine threat by significantly improving our survivability and drastically shortening the kill chain for an inbound threat.

WHEN: May 20-22, 2025

WHERE: Booth #D36, Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre

Ultra Maritime Shapes Future of Hybrid Fleet with Scalable Radar Solutions for Unmanned Platforms

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BRAINTREE, Massachusetts – Ultra Maritime is at the forefront of enabling a hybrid navy fleet of manned and unmanned platforms to perform the mission sets needed today while evolving with the anticipated threats of tomorrow. Through a software-defined family of radars built on the proven capabilities of the Next Generation Surface Search Radar (NGSSR), Ultra Maritime’s scalable radar architecture allows adaptation to any size platform or mission.

With a common radar sensor on varied platforms, the operating picture can be shared across surface, submarine and unmanned vessels. Most importantly, this allows for real-time threat detection inside an engagement zone by unmanned vehicles, keeping sailors and expensive, large platforms safe. Compared to the NGSSR baseline antenna size, scaled models can be outfitted down to an 18-inch diameter and reduce transmit power to fit within the constraints of small spaces on unmanned vehicles.

Ultra Maritime’s family of radar solutions are able to perform multiple missions, including navigation, surface search, periscope detection and discrimination, low flying air tracking and other sensitive missions. With continued investment, Ultra Maritime has matured radar capabilities even further, including tracking aerial drones, detecting submarine threats and providing options for autonomous navigation, all leveraging Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML) to improve performance. Enhanced radar capabilities also include wave sensing for sailor safety and early warnings for cruise missile defense.

Most recently, Ultra Maritime was awarded a $36 million contract for the AN/BPS System for engineering, technical support and production on new construction and in-service submarines. This underscores the Navy’s ongoing commitment to enhancing navigation technology as maritime traffic continues to increase globally.