RTsys
Lanester, France maker of COMET-MCM and NemoSens AUVs, SONADIVE diver sonar, SEMA ASW targets and RESEA/SYLENCE passive acoustic recorders.
RTsys is a French designer and manufacturer of underwater acoustic systems and autonomous underwater vehicles for defence, scientific and offshore customers. It is based at 235 rue de la Montagne du Salut in Lanester, near Lorient in Brittany. According to its Naval Technology contractor profile it was founded in 2010, and the company describes more than a decade of R&D carried out in close cooperation with the French Navy. All products are designed and built at the French headquarters. Acoustic tests run daily in an in-house lab, and a sea test base in Lorient harbour, set in a former Second World War submarine base, keeps two boats for trials off Brittany. The company holds ISO 9001 certification and also runs a Singapore office.
RTsys organises its products around four areas: autonomous underwater vehicles, mine countermeasures (MCM), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and passive acoustic monitoring (PAM). Its signal processing is built on its own Synchronous Data Acquisition (SDA) electronics core and its own acoustic communication protocol.
The AUV range has three models. COMET-300 is a two-man-portable survey AUV that runs for up to 20 hours. Its acoustic communication and long-baseline positioning let operators see live position and navigation data, and up to 10 vehicles can work as a swarm using sparse-LBL localisation with side-scan sonar and other payloads. COMET-MCM is a 300 m version built to support explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) divers. It detects, localises and classifies mines over large areas at 3 to 10 knots, using GPS, INS and DVL navigation and carrying side-scan sonar, a camera and a magnetometer. It can also act as a relay or LBL beacon alongside RTsys Surface Communication Modules and Positioning and Relay Beacons. NemoSens is a micro-AUV under one metre long and under 10 kg, rated to 300 m, with more than 8 hours of endurance at 4 knots. Development began in 2015 with funding from Bpifrance, Brest Metropole Oceane, the Brittany Region and the Finistere department. Its open Linux architecture lets users write their own mission algorithms through ROS or MOOS-IvP.
For divers, SONADIVE is a hand-held navigation and imaging sonar that covers 0 to 100 m. It carries INS, DVL, a pressure sensor and a floating GPS, and supports acoustic messaging over more than 2 km, or up to 5 km through relay beacons. For ASW, the SEMA autonomous recoverable acoustic target is used for submarine-hunting and torpedo-firing training, and the Royal Netherlands Navy ordered seven units. The towed SIERA system calibrates hull-mounted, dipping and variable-depth sonars and measures radiated noise. The PAM line includes the RUBHY real-time noise buoy, which works up to sea state 5 and transmits SEL and SPL data over 10 km, and two recorders: RESEA, which takes up to four broadband hydrophones at more than 500 kHz bandwidth, and SYLENCE-LP, a single-hydrophone recorder that can log for six months on alkaline D cells. A SYSENSE seabed station provides multiparameter monitoring for inshore construction and dredging.
Customer references include the Slovenian Navy, which ordered one COMET-MCM and two NemoSens vehicles to add to its SONADIVE units. The French hydrographic service Shom chose NemoSens after a seven-month competitive tender at the end of 2025, with delivery due in the first half of 2026. NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and Arctic Rays are working with RTsys on a NemoSens SwordFish variant. RTsys has bought 20 Klein 900 kHz side-scan sonars for NemoSens production and has taken delivery of a batch of 20 Teledyne Pathfinder and 10 Wayfinder DVLs. In November 2024 it signed a partnership with DCI Group to bring its MCM and ASW equipment into military training programmes.
On ownership, Ace Capital Partners funds invested in 2012, when RTsys came under the Seafin group alongside the distributor Neotek. In November 2021 Sea Vorian, an investor group led by Jean-Luc Biache and Francois-Xavier de Cointet, acquired 100 percent of Seafin. The group bought MAPPEM Geophysics in September 2025. On 1 January 2026 it took the name RTsys Group, with three business lines: RTsys Underwater Technologies (the former RTsys), RTsys Monitoring Solutions (the former Neotek) and RTsys Survey & Data Services. In 2025 the group added more than EUR 4 million of long-term financing, including a EUR 2 million capital increase. In January 2026 its Lorient-area teams moved to a new site that the group says triples production capacity. LinkedIn lists RTsys Group at 51-200 employees.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
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Contact RTsys
WEBSITE
https://rtsys.euHEADQUARTERS
France
Company Facts
Founded
2010
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Subsidiary / Acquired
Funding Total
-
Certifications & Memberships
Keywords
- RTsys
- COMET-MCM
- COMET-300
- NemoSens micro-AUV
- SONADIVE
- SEMA training target
- passive acoustic monitoring
- mine countermeasures
- sparse-LBL positioning
- anti-submarine warfare training
- Manufacturer
- Unmanned Marine Vehicle
- Perception & Vision
- AUV
- Defense & Security
- Education & Research
- Oil
- Gas & Energy
- EOD
