The U.S. Navy has expanded the contract with Gecko Robotics by increasing its agreement ceiling from $71 million to $300 million to ramp up the advancement of robotics and AI systems to counter emerging naval threats such as China in the Indo-Pacific.
Just 6 months after initial deployment, the quadrupled deal shows Washington’s inclination towards employing emerging technologies and automation to speed up maintenance and repair of naval ships and boost fleet readiness.
The decision to streamline maintenance schedules comes as the military faces an increasing gap with China, which has a large battle fleet and superior manufacturing and repair times compared to the U.S.
By adopting modern inspection tools, the Navy aims to boost fleet readiness toward an 80 percent target and also handle the shipyard delays and shortages of skilled labour required for complex projects.
Gecko Robotics has wall-climbing robots that can crawl across hulls, flight decks, and ballast tanks to inspect destroyers, amphibious warships, and littoral combat ships.
These machines can find metal loss and corrosion
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