IN Brief:
- Sea Spear sonar was connected with Seabed Sentry and Anduril’s Lattice software.
- Tracks were passed into the US Navy’s wider command-and-control environment.
- Operational scale will require deployable arrays, secure processing, common interfaces, spares, and sufficient production for distributed coverage.
Anduril and Ultra Maritime have demonstrated an integrated undersea-surveillance network during the US Navy’s Lanternfish exercise, using distributed sonar and command software to detect, track, and classify advanced uncrewed underwater vehicles.
The demonstration connected Ultra Maritime’s Sea Spear lightweight deployable sonar with Anduril’s Seabed Sentry architecture and Lattice software. Resulting tracks were passed into the Navy’s wider command-and-control environment rather than remaining confined to a specialist sonar console.
Uncrewed underwater vehicles are becoming more capable and more widely available, supporting surveillance, seabed mapping, mine activity, infrastructure inspection, payload delivery, and operations around ports or naval bases. Their small acoustic signatures and ability to remain submerged make them difficult targets for conventional surface surveillance.
Sea Spear is intended to provide a rapidly deployable acoustic-sensing layer rather than relying entirely on permanently installed seabed arrays or large specialist ships. Sensors can be distributed around approaches, exercises, harbours, or infrastructure and repositioned as operational priorities change.
Detection alone does not create a usable track. Underwater environments contain commercial shipping, marine life, machinery, waves, flow noise, and changing acoustic layers, requiring signal processing capable of isolating contacts and maintaining confidence as conditions vary.
Once a contact has been detected, timing, location accuracy, data formats, communications, and cybersecurity determine whether another platform can respond. Integrating the sonar into Lattice and the Navy network moves the system towards that broader chain.
Manufacturing spans several specialised areas. Acoustic arrays require transducers, cabling, pressure-resistant electronics, underwater connectors, deployment equipment, and protective materials, while processing nodes need secure computing and communications hardware.
Distributed sensing requires quantity
Undersea surveillance is moving towards larger numbers of compact sensors and autonomous platforms alongside conventional ships and submarines. That changes the production model from a small number of exquisite installations towards distributed equipment that can be deployed, replaced, and upgraded across several locations.
A network only provides resilience when enough nodes exist to maintain coverage after damage, fouling, handling losses, or hostile action. Exercise success proves the architecture, whereas operational deployment demands repeatable output, spares, trained maintainers, secure software, and recovery equipment.
Lockheed Martin and Ultra Maritime are already working to expand the anti-submarine warfare supply chain around greater demand for sensors and processing. Lanternfish shows how such equipment may feed a common operational picture rather than functioning as isolated acoustic systems.
The AUKUS UUV programme’s production phase will also increase the number of friendly autonomous platforms beneath the surface. Identification procedures and command systems must separate allied vehicles from unknown contacts without exposing sensitive signature data unnecessarily.
Classification models require representative acoustic information, but access to the signatures of friendly and hostile systems is tightly controlled. Multinational operations will need data-sharing arrangements that support detection while protecting design details and intelligence sources.
Hardware standardisation can lower cost and improve support. Common processors, enclosures, power modules, connectors, deployment equipment, and software interfaces make distributed nodes easier to produce and maintain.
Complete uniformity creates its own vulnerability if an adversary learns the acoustic, communications, or cyber characteristics shared by every sensor. Production planning may therefore require controlled variation without allowing configuration to fragment.
Software should be upgradeable independently of the underwater hardware wherever possible. New classification models, signal-processing methods, or command interfaces could then be introduced without recovering and replacing every sensor component.
Environmental durability will determine availability. Seabed, towed, and deployable equipment faces corrosion, pressure, cable damage, biofouling, shock, and difficult recovery conditions, while persistent use requires more demanding sealing and monitoring than a short exercise.
The supplier base extends beyond Anduril and Ultra Maritime. Array materials, rugged processors, acoustic components, underwater connectors, power systems, handling machinery, and secure communications all depend on specialist manufacturers whose capacity may be limited.
Lanternfish has shown that a deployable sonar contact can enter a Navy command network. Scaling the capability now requires enough reliable nodes, replacement components, support equipment, and software infrastructure to maintain coverage beyond a controlled exercise.
Counter-UUV defence is becoming a networked manufacturing programme. Sensors, processors, command software, communications, and response platforms must be produced and supported as one architecture, even when they originate from separate companies and operate across several layers of the undersea environment.
