A new submarine capable of dropping 6,000 meters to explore ocean floors has been unveiled in France, aiming to put the country at the forefront of marine discovery.

Ulyx, an autonomous submarine, was presented at the Ifremer center in Toulon and puts France in a select group of countries including the UK, U.S. and Japan with the capability to explore the depths of the ocean.

"Ulyx is a new autonomous apparatus that will be capable of diving 6 kilometers deep, to do dives autonomously for 48 hours, and it is equipped with a whole series of very high resolution sensors that will allow us to map the ocean floor with precision," said François Houllier, CEO of Ifremer.

"It's also an apparatus that has intelligence capabilities. It is able to stop in a certain spot and then start back up, and when it is stopped, to zoom, to look at a particular spot."

Sophie Arnaud-Haond, evolutionary ecology researcher at Ifremer, said the new equipment will be a big bonus for scientific research.

"There's a real expectation from the scientific community to be able to explore the abysses more, which cover half of our planet and which are still very un-explored, little-known," she said.

"So to have a machine that's as sensitive as Ulyx and that can simultaneously see, hear, and touch is really a huge step forward for us that's going to make research of new ecosystems easier and allow us to observe new types of ecosystems on the abyssal plane."