ULAQ

Turkey's ARES-Meteksan armed unmanned surface vessel family, built around modular composite hulls for port security, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, ISR/EW, mine countermeasures and expendable strike missions.

Overview

ULAQ is a Turkish family of armed and missionized unmanned surface vessels developed jointly by ARES Shipyard in Antalya and Meteksan Defence in Ankara. The family ranges from the compact ULAQ KAMA expendable strike craft to 11 m-class port-security and surface-combat boats, 12 m ASuW/ASW variants and larger 15 m concepts for mine countermeasures and longer-range strike. It is one of Turkey's most visible naval-drone programs and has moved from prototype firing tests to Turkish Navy commissioning and Qatar Coast Guard export service.

The program's main distinction is breadth rather than a single headline performance figure. ARES and Meteksan present ULAQ as a common USV line for anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, port and base security, ISR, electronic warfare, mine countermeasures, firefighting and expendable attack roles, a scope reflected in public profiles by Naval Technology and Wikipedia. Its baseline armed form uses guided rockets or anti-tank missiles; planned and larger variants add lightweight torpedoes, sonars, anti-ship missiles or the Roketsan CAKIR cruise missile.

Development

ARES Shipyard and Meteksan Defence began work on ULAQ around 2019, completed design studies by August 2020 and publicly unveiled the concept in October 2020. The first prototype was launched in Antalya on 12 February 2021, and its first live missile firing followed during the Turkish Navy's Denizkurdu-2021 exercise in May 2021, when a Roketsan Cirit laser-guided missile fired from ULAQ destroyed a land target, according to Army Recognition and Wikipedia.

The program then moved from demonstrator to procurement. Turkey's defense procurement agency, SSB, announced a contract with ARES and Meteksan on 27 December 2022 for ULAQ ASuW and ASW configurations after ASuW and Port Security trials had been completed, according to Naval News. ARES later reported production of ULAQ-12 hulls for the Turkish Navy, with TURDEF describing a completed Turkish Navy batch by December 2024 in its ULAQ-12 report.

By December 2025, the Turkish Navy had formally commissioned an ULAQ ASuW vessel during a major Istanbul Naval Shipyard ceremony that also included the submarine TCG Hizirreis and landing ship C-159. Naval News reported that the commissioned ULAQ's indigenization rate exceeded 90% after installation of a domestically produced engine and that ULAQ became the fifth USV type in Turkish Navy service after MARLIN, SANCAR, SALVO and ALBATROS.

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