Thales unveils Sonar 76Nano system

A concept graphic of Thales' Sonar 76Nano in use, released in December 2025. (Thales)

Thales has revealed a new miniaturised artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled sonar system conceived to match undersea warfare priorities identified by the UK and NATO partners.

Known as Sonar 76Nano, the system has been specifically developed to provide medium, large, and extra-large unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) with a sensor that is dual-capable for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and critical underwater infrastructure (CUI) protection. The technology – transitioned from concept to prototype in 10 months – will be showcased to the UK Royal Navy (RN) for the first time on 17 December.

The UK's 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in June, sets out plans to deploy a new layered sensor network – known as Atlantic Bastion – to provide persistent underwater surveillance in the North Atlantic. This move, which is expected to see the deployment of a hybrid force exploiting innovation in AI, sensing, and remotely-operated and/or autonomous systems, reflects concerns over the growing threat from Russian underwater activity.

Thales sees Sonar 76Nano being closely aligned with Atlantic Bastion. “We're building on the legacy of the Royal Navy's Sonar 2076 submarine sonar suite to develop a new product on the ASW side,” Ian McFarlane, sales director, Underwater Systems Thales UK, told Janes in December. “But we also sought to give it a synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) undersea imaging capability [for CUI].”

Thales has invested over GBP2 million (USD2.67 million) in Sonar 76Nano product development since the start of 2025, engineering a system that combines inboard processing derived from Sonar 2076 with a flat panel receive ‘wet end' – incorporating 2076 technology – built up from a series of 75×75 cm tiles.