US Navy Boosts Gecko Robotics Contract to USD 300 Million

The US Navy awarded Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics a $300 million IDIQ contract to use its automated inspection robots for detecting corrosion on ships. The technology allows maintenance to be planned in advance and builds a digital record of each vessel's condition.

The new contract expands a prior $71 million agreement announced in March, which covered work on 18 vessels of the US Pacific Fleet. The figure quadrupled just six months after the initial rollout, as Washington seeks to speed up maintenance and repair of its vessels amid China's growing shipbuilding and repair capacity in the Indo-Pacific.

Gecko's robots can climb hulls, flight decks and ballast tanks of destroyers, amphibious assault ships and littoral combat ships, detecting metal loss and corrosion up to 50 times faster than manual methods. The data is processed on the company's Cantilever artificial intelligence platform, which makes it possible to identify problems before they worsen. The company also unveiled a new robot called Komodo, designed to scan steel decks beneath thick non-skid coatings and detect hidden corrosion without having to remove the coatings.

According to the company, the technology can save the Navy up to $8 million in repair costs per vessel; in one case, the robotic prediction reduced a repair area from 1,200 square feet to just 300. The Navy's goal is to sustain 80% combat readiness at all times, while also contending with a shortage of skilled labor and shipyard delays. Gecko co-founder and CEO Jake Loosararian said that with savings of millions of dollars per vessel and inspections shrinking from months to days, the US Navy is showing the world how to deploy technology at scale.

Gecko Robotics will also take part in non-destructive testing of submarine components at Anduril's future manufacturing plants in Sparrows Point, Baltimore, and in Orange County, California. The Sparrows Point plant is expected to become operational in 2030, while work at the Orange County site is already underway.