Ulyx
Gallery
Overview
French 6,000 m AUV co-developed by Ifremer and Exail to map and sample the deep seafloor.
Ulyx is the deep-diving autonomous underwater vehicle of France's national ocean institute Ifremer, built with the robotics company Exail to replace older survey AUVs in the French Oceanographic Fleet. The bright yellow, 2.7-tonne vehicle is rated to 6,000 m, which opens up most of the world's seafloor, and carries mapping sonars, cameras and water sensors for missions of about a day. It was christened in 2020, made its first dives off Toulon that year and reached its full working depth in 2023. Its design also became the basis for Exail's A6K-M, a deep-sea mine-hunting AUV for the French Navy.
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About 4.5 x 1.0 x 0.8 m and 2.7 t, rated to 6,000 m, with about 24 h endurance, 80 km range and a 200 kg payload. Co-developed by Ifremer and Exail; christened in October 2020 at La Seyne-sur-Mer, it made its first dives off Toulon later that year, and dives to 6,000 m were reported in the third quarter of 2023. Exail's military A6K-M deep-sea AUV is based on the Ulyx architecture.
