During i-Naval 2025 event taking place in France, the French SME Alseamar signed a contract with the French Navy (Marine Nationale) to provide a batch of five underwater gliders with acoustic payload by year-end.
Alseamar press release
ALSEAMAR announces the signature of a contract with the French Navy for the delivery of an initial capacity of five SEAEXPLORER 1000- M gliders – the military version of their most recent generation of gliders – before the end of 2025.
These gliders will incorporate a payload equipped with the AURIS solution developed by ALSEAMAR for acoustic surveillance of the underwater environment. Powered by AI, this solution enables real- time embedded acquisition and processing of acoustic data. The data is encrypted to ensure its security.
The network deployment of SEAEXPLORER 1000- M gliders enables them to be used on a large scale, multiplying the efficiency of the system and the quality of the information transmitted to the naval force.
Enduring, stealthy and proven in operational environments, SEAEXPLORER 1000- M gliders will strengthen the French Navy’s underwater acoustic surveillance capabilities.
This is the first sale of the SEAEXPLORER 1000- M system, unveiled at EURONAVAL 2024. Commercial discussions are already underway for export sales, indicating further opportunities for ALSEAMAR’s military gliders.
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Naval News comment:
SEAEXPLORER gliders have been under test and experimentation for several years with the French Navy. They were taken to participate in major exercises such as French-Italian MARE APERTO 2024 where the system was shown to have detected Italian ships – playing a “red force” – in a downgraded environment in which the vessels were operating. It also participated in POLARIS 20205 – French Navy’s biggest exercise. The company took part several times in NATO REPMUS experimentations and more recently is involved with 5 gliders within the NATO Task Force X (TFX) experimentation in the Baltic Sea.
All five gliders ordered by the French Navy are now currently in production to be delivered on time reported an ALSEAMAR representative to Naval News.
For export, the Southern France based company eyes Japan’s market. Indeed, as already reported by Naval News, the JMSDF has acquired one SEAEXPLORER and one system from its main competitor, a G3 Slocum from Teledyne, to test both of them for some time before selecting one of the two to constitute a small fleet.
