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Ultra Maritime Features Anti-Submarine Warfare Capabilities Across the Air, Surface and Undersea for Unmanned and Hybrid Fleets at DSEI 2025

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As submarine and autonomous threats increase, the need for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) across all domains has never been greater. Ultra Maritime will present its full portfolio of world leading ASW technology from the air, surface and undersea for unmanned and hybrid fleets at DSEI 2025 from Sept. 9-12 in London. Senior leaders will also be on hand to present on two panels during the show.

The following is a selection of what will be highlighted at booth #A-340 in the Naval Forum:

Sea Spear – One-of-a-Kind Lightweight Deployable Sonar
Sea Spear was introduced to the world earlier this year and is being used as part of a strategic partnership with Anduril’s Seabed Sentry to communicate critical subsea information in real time. Ultra Maritime’s Sea Spear is 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 during a time when submarine detection and tracking 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, a full operational demonstration will occur by the end of 2025.

Next Generation Sonobuoys
Ultra Maritime has begun delivery on its next generation sonobuoys, which 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. With significant investments in technology and infrastructure, Ultra Maritime has recently opened its new Greenford-London facility, configured specifically for the development and production of sonobuoys and sonar products to achieve reliable delivery and meet production demand of the global market.

Ultra Maritime Mission Pod – Containerized 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 ASW 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.

Ultra Maritime Opens London Facility Dedicated to Bringing Anti-Submarine Warfare Solutions to Global Allied Navies

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London, UK – Today, Ultra Maritime officially opened its new integrated design and manufacturing center in London – Greenford, UK, hosting the right honourable Maria Eagle MP for a ribbon cutting ceremony and tour. Located just 10 miles west of central London, the new facility replaces the previous nearby location with a custom-designed, modern and streamlined work site for Ultra Maritime’s UK anti-submarine warfare (ASW) team.

This new facility demonstrates Ultra Maritime’s commitment and readiness to support the indigenous manufacturing goals of the UK Ministry of Defence, as well as a strong pivot towards anti-submarine warfare capabilities, recently laid out in the UK Strategic Defence Review. With more than 5600 square meters of office space, labs and a manufacturing production floor, Ultra Maritime currently has more than 130 employees on site with plans to expand by at least 50 more employees near term, and further expansion well into the future.

Ultra Maritime has been executing a long-term strategic investment plan, entirely with internal funding, to upgrade or renovate its sites across the UK, U.S., Canada and Australia, while similarly investing in novel, modern, high-tech ASW capabilities built at these facilities. From the latest generation of sonobuoys to entirely new modalities of unmanned ASW, like the Ultra Maritime Mission Pod and Sea Spear in partnership with Anduril, Ultra Maritime is leading the way in creating ASW solutions of the future.

Ultra Maritime Leaders Speak on Future Unmanned Anti-Submarine Warfare and Defense Industrial Capacity at DSEI 2025

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London, UK – Ultra Maritime will present during two forums in the Naval Pavillion at DSEI in September. With the defense landscape quickly shifting and agility becoming a key component of innovation, Ultra Maritime is proud to showcase thought-leadership in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and the future needs of a hybrid fleet, as well as exploring how the Ministry of Defence and allied nations are growing industrial capacity to meet market demands.

Tuesday, September 9 from 15:00-15:50
Silent Battles, Hybrid Fleets: The Autonomous Future of Anti-Submarine Warfare and How We Get There

Bill Biggs, in his role as Senior Consultant for Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), will moderate this panel around the need to exploit novel ASW solutions as enemy submarines proliferate and grow quieter, and international waters become more contested. The modern ASW challenge requires many modalities of sensing and communications, and solutions must unite existing and next-generation capabilities while leveraging both manned and unmanned platforms rapidly and at scale. Joining this discussion are experts Carlo Zaffanella, President and CEO of Ultra Maritime, Dr. Shane Arnott, Senior Vice President of Programs and Engineering at Anduril Industries, and Dr. Stephen Tripp, Director of Future Capabilities and International Strategy at General Atomics.

Wednesday, September 10 from 15:00-15:50
Building Factories, Building Deterrents

Elizabeth Baker, Vice President of International Business Development at Ultra Maritime, will host this discussion around rapidly regenerating defense industrial capacity as adversaries grow more intelligent and capable and the threat to global supply chains becomes more concerning. In response to the UK Strategic Defence Review promising a new partnership with industry and procurement reforms, this discussion will examine what changes are necessary to make this possible at pace and how allies can work together through the transfer of technology to support one another’s ambitions. The experts for this discussion will include Rex Cox, former CEO of the National Shipbuilding Office, and now Trials and Acceptance Director at Babock International, Ian Wilcox, Head of Science and Technology Delivery at DSTL, Cmde Madhavarao, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), and Col Rob Tyler, Director Air Requirements, Royal Canadian Air Force.  

Ultra Maritime Leads the Future of Unmanned Anti-Submarine Warfare Solutions from the Air, Surface and Undersea

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The demand for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) has never been greater. Threat submarines proliferate and grow quieter. And international waters grow more contested.

Tackling the modern anti-submarine warfare problem requires many modalities of sensing and communication. Successful solutions must unite existing and next-generation capabilities while leveraging both manned and unmanned platforms rapidly and at scale. A distributed network across a hybrid fleet is essential to achieving maritime dominance while reducing the risk to expensive manned platforms, particularly in contested waters.  

As the leader in ASW innovation for global allied navies, Ultra Maritime recognizes the many challenges modern submarine threats pose and has invested in state-of-the-art technologies that make ASW possible across a hybrid fleet.

From the Air: Through a strategic partnership, Ultra Maritime has paired its new miniaturized receivers and half size sonobuoys, including multi-static active capabilities, with a specially adapted unmanned aerial system, allowing for double the search area and higher probability of detection.

From the Surface: The internally designed Ultra Maritime Mission Pod is a self-contained towed-array-in-a-box that provides modular capability to manned and unmanned surface ships. When deployed with a decoy array as part of a layered torpedo defense system, it can be integrated within a broader network of Ultra Maritime’s shipboard sensors, decoys and countermeasures for complete undersea situational awareness.

From Undersea: Ultra Maritime has developed Sea Spear, an entirely new ASW modality. Sea Spear is a fixed, clandestinely deployable, long endurance and attritable sonar array. Via a strategic partnership, Sea Spear deploys from unmanned underwater vehicles providing towed array-like sensitivity and detection using AI-enabled processing at the tactical edge.

At Ultra Maritime, we blend innovation and proven expertise to deliver the ASW solutions required for today’s threats and tomorrow’s advantage. What was once theoretical is now possible – Ultra Maritime is redefining the future of anti-submarine warfare.

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 Collaborates with the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde to Evaluate Next Generation Materials for Underwater Sensing

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London, U.K. – Ultra Maritime is pleased to announce a collaboration with the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde though the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Ultrasonic Engineering (FUSE CDT), a UK Research and Innovation program. The research focuses on the evaluation of novel ceramic materials, targeted at Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Torpedo Defense applications. These materials will enable an increase in source levels for active sonars as well as an increase in sensitivity for passive sonars, both of which are critical in developing the next generation of ASW solutions.

 “We are very excited to announce our relationship with FUSE and looking forward to rapidly transitioning this exciting research into Ultra Maritime’s portfolio of ASW and Torpedo Defense systems,” said Andrew Anderson, Ultra Maritime Chief Technology Officer. “This is a great example of where Ultra Maritime is investing in fundamental research to advance UK defence industrial capability.”

Professor Sandy Cochran, of the University of Glasgow, is co-director of FUSE CDT. He said, “It’s great to be working with Ultra Maritime through our world-leading FUSE CDT. The technical excellence of Ultra Maritime matches our own and the materials on which we’re working together will undoubtedly be extremely important for ASW and Torpedo Defense in an increasingly uncertain global environment.”

Ultra Maritime is committed to providing world-leading undersea warfare solutions for today’s missions while developing tomorrow’s technological advances. Ultra Maritime is proud to maintain the highest levels of investment in future ASW technology, and this collaboration is another step in maritime domain advantage for allied navies.  

French Navy Atlantique 2 Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Ultra Maritime to Enhance ASW capabilities of Marine Nationale in France

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COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. – Ultra Maritime continues to expand its growing list of customers for the next generation of sonobuoy technologies, and is proud to announce a significant multi-product award from Thales Group in support of Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), the French Government’s defense procurement and technology agency. DGA will be procuring both active and passive sonobuoys, including some of the latest technologies from Ultra Maritime’s new U.S. production lines, that together will provide significant anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities.

As undersea domain awareness becomes increasingly critical, and submarine and uncrewed threats more and more stealthy, enhancements in sonobuoy performance make the difference between detecting an undersea threat and missing it. Following several years of development and recapitalization, Ultra Maritime now offers multiple fully qualified, volume production sonobuoys manufactured in plants in the U.S., Canada and UK, that together address the world’s most demanding ASW needs. Ultra Maritime, through Thales, will provide the Marine nationale with an enhanced ASW capability and an increased probability of detection of undersea threats.

Ultra Maritime will be supplying newly designed and qualified U.S.-built AN/SSQ 62E DICASS and AN/SSQ 53G DIFAR sonobuoys. These sonobuoys offer significant performance improvements and are equipped with cutting-edge battery technology which nearly doubles the operational life of the active sonobuoys and augments their acoustic output, while providing precise detection, localization and classification, ensuring reliability of outcomes in critical defense operations. Ultra Maritime will also supply G-size AN/SSQ 536G Bathythermal buoys from its Canadian site in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. G-size sonobuoys deliver advanced sonobuoy technology in a more compact form, ideal for rotary wing and Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) operations where minimizing payload dimensions and mass are important factors.

Ultra Maritime Passes Preliminary Design Review for Next Generation Multistatic Active Receive Sonobuoy

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London, UK – Ultra Maritime has successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review for the Multistatic Active Receive Sonobuoy (MSARS) as part of a UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) funded research and development program. MSARS is a next generation small form factor G-Size sonobuoy which will significantly improve the multistatic detection and localization performance compared to current multistatic sonobuoy technologies.

MSARS has been specifically designed to operate from Rotary Wing and Fixed Wing Uncrewed Air Systems (UAS), as well as from crewed platforms. It includes a patented interface technology to allow the platform’s mission system to directly program sonobuoys prior to launch.

This work is aligned to the Royal Navy’s Proteus UAS program and supports the Royal Navy’s Maritime Aviation Transformation strategy, which includes sonobuoy dispensing and data relay capabilities for Tier 1-2 UAS.

“Navies around the world are increasingly evaluating and adopting uncrewed air, surface and underwater platforms to conduct anti-submarine warfare (ASW) to assist their existing crewed platforms. Ultra Maritime is focused on developing and deploying world-leading ASW payloads for all these platform types. The MSARS development is an important part of the airborne element, alongside our significant internal investments in sonobuoy receivers, networking of ASW sensors and AI-assisted processing / tactical decision making,” said Andrew Anderson, Ultra Maritime Chief Technology Officer.

Ultra Maritime Collaborates with University of Liverpool to Develop Artificial Intelligence for Passive Sonar

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London, U.K. – Ultra Maritime is pleased to announce a collaboration with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Distributed Algorithms at the University of Liverpool, a UK Research and Innovation funded programme. The research focuses on using machine learning to improve the tracking and detection of vessels using passive sonar, targeted at Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Torpedo Defence applications.

The initial work has shown promising results in improving the detection performance compared to traditional processing techniques, allowing Operators and Automatic Classifiers to extract signals from further into the noise as well as improving tracking performance.

“We are very excited to further develop our relationship with the University of Liverpool, who are recognized leaders in Autonomy and Distributed Algorithms,” said Andrew Anderson, Ultra Maritime Chief Technology Officer. “AI/ML technologies will provide disruptive benefits to many aspects of the ASW mission, and we are looking forward to rapidly transitioning this exciting research into Ultra Maritime’s portfolio of ASW and Torpedo Defense systems.”

Professor Simon Maskell, Director of the CDT at the University of Liverpool, commented: “The CDT seeks to train students to become future leaders with a valuable combination of skills that is otherwise hard to find in a single person. Indeed, we aim to help those students acquire a synergistic understanding of both next-generation AI/ML and future computing together with a well-honed ability to solve pressing real-world problems. It is a real pleasure to see one of those students capitalizing on the training environment provided by the CDT to work closely in partnership with Ultra Maritime to make a difference in this important context.”

Ultra Maritime prides itself on investing in the future of undersea warfare solutions for allied navies worldwide. This collaboration continues to build on those investments, providing next-generation, technologically advanced AI/ML solutions for maritime domain dominance.