US Navy Quadruples Contract for AI Robots to Inspect Warships
The expanded deal with Gecko Robotics aims to enhance fleet readiness and 'outsmart' China's growing naval capabilities.
The U.S. Navy is significantly expanding its investment in artificial intelligence by quadrupling the ceiling on a contract for AI-powered robots used to inspect warships. The deal with Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics now stands at $300 million, a substantial increase from its initial $71 million ceiling.
This move underscores the growing emphasis the U.S. military places on technological solutions to maintain fleet readiness, particularly as it faces a widening shipbuilding gap with China. According to Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian, the strategy is to leverage technology to compensate for manufacturing capacity.
"While the U.S. may not be able to out-manufacture faster than China, we can outsmart the ways that we maintain, operate and are ready with our vessels," Loosararian told Fox News Digital.
Gecko Robotics' technology offers significant potential savings and efficiency gains. The company claims its systems can reduce repair costs on a single ship by up to $8 million and identify structural issues up to 50 times faster than traditional inspection methods. The robots are designed to crawl across various parts of warships, including hard-to-access areas like ballast tanks, scanning for corrosion and metal loss. The collected data is processed by Gecko's AI-powered Cantilever platform, providing maintenance planners with precise information to prioritize repairs.
Gecko is also introducing a new robot named Komodo, specifically developed for the Navy. Komodo can scan the steel beneath thick coatings on warship decks, mapping corrosion and material thickness without the need to strip away the surface layers. Loosararian likened the process to a "CAT scan," providing detailed insights into the ship's structural condition. This capability can significantly reduce the scope of necessary repairs by accurately pinpointing problem areas, as demonstrated in one instance where robotic inspections narrowed a projected repair area from 1,200 square feet to approximately 300 square feet.
The initial five-year, $71 million contract was awarded in March, with work planned for 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The recent expansion aims to accelerate the Navy's goal of achieving 80% fleet readiness, a target that has been challenged by ongoing maintenance delays sidelining ships.
China currently operates a larger battle force than the U.S. Navy and possesses a shipbuilding capacity that American shipyards cannot easily match. This asymmetric advantage places greater pressure on the Pentagon to maximize the operational availability of its existing fleet.
Beyond identifying existing damage, Gecko Robotics aims to use accumulated inspection data to predict future problems, enabling proactive maintenance. This predictive capability could allow for better resource allocation, ensuring that repair crews, materials, and plans are ready when a ship is available for maintenance. The technology also has the potential to reduce the burden of dangerous and labor-intensive inspection tasks for shipyard workers, addressing skilled labor shortages within the industrial base. By enabling a smaller workforce to focus more on repairs and less on diagnostics, the Navy hopes to increase the overall efficiency and readiness of its fleet in response to evolving geopolitical challenges.