Ultra Maritime has successfully demonstrated an integrated sonar solution during the US Navy’s 2026 Lanternfish exercise.
The event featured the combined use of Sea Spear, a deployable passive sonar, and the SSQ-125B, an active sonobuoy developed by the company, to both detect and localise uncrewed underwater vehicles.
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In a 13 August release, Ultra Maritime noted that the system was tested for its ability to passively detect and actively locate uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), an area of increasing importance in maritime security.
The company stated that this exercise contributes to validating its acoustic architecture, which is designed for autonomous counter-UUV and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missions.
According to Ultra Maritime, the demonstration marks progress toward its “Ocean of Things” vision, a distributed, intelligent network of autonomous underwater sensors deployable from both crewed and uncrewed platforms to deliver a continuous, real-time view of the undersea environment.
The company also highlighted the scalable nature of its sonar solution, indicating its potential use across a variety of missions, including port defence, infrastructure protection, maritime choke point security, expeditionary operations, and long-term surveillance of critical sea lanes.
The SSQ-125B, which represent the latest generation of active sonobuoy technology, is claimed to be the only active sonobuoy of its type currently available.
The technology offers enhanced detection and localisation capabilities and works in tandem with Sea Spear’s persistent passive sensing functions.
When combined, these two systems create an integrated detection network that extends the range, persistence, and effectiveness of autonomous anti-submarine operations, setting a new benchmark for distributed underwater surveillance.
This demonstration comes after Ultra Maritime was awarded a Sole Source Firm Fixed Price contract in April for Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of the AN/SSQ-125B for the US Navy.
The contract encompasses supply for annual training, operational use, testing, and maintaining adequate inventories to meet large-scale combat requirements.
Additionally, in June this year, Ultra Maritime conducted the first in-water deployment trial of its Multistatic Active Receive Sonobuoy (MSARS) in Scotland.
