Gecko Robotics signs largest U.S. Navy robot deal ever

The U.S. Navy has signed the largest robot-related agreement to date as the military branch considers using robots to maintain its fleet.

Gekko Robotics, a Pittsburgh-based company that makes robots and sensors for inspecting large industrial assets, has signed a five-year IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contract with the U.S. Navy and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the company announced Tuesday. The deal starts with an initial salary of $54 million and has a cap hit of $71 million.

The Navy uses Gecko robots and sensors to monitor the condition and health of U.S. Navy assets and ship fleets, including 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Gecko founder and CEO Jake Rousalarian told TechCrunch that the company’s robots will penetrate every nook and cranny of a ship to create a detailed digital replica (also known as a “digital twin”) of each vessel. The company’s software helps organizations monitor assets and recommend maintenance, proactively addressing problems before they occur and trying to reduce maintenance time and costs.

“Using robotic systems to create a digital representation of the health and condition of these assets, as well as the digitization of the environment itself, allows for faster decision-making and remediation,” Loosararian said. “We want to be able to build a viable model that can reliably reduce the number of days these assets have to spend into the future. [out of service]”

The agreement is intended to help the Navy reach its goal of having 80% of its ships ready by 2027. Currently, approximately 40% of the Navy’s fleet is not available at all times due to the long maintenance cycles of these ships.

“Maintenance costs equate to $13 billion to $20 billion a year,” Loosararian said. “That’s critical in a time when you need every asset you can get. And those assets aren’t getting any younger either.”

Gecko has been working with the U.S. Navy for four years. After a port engineer based in Japan contacted them to learn more about the company, Gecko conducted an assessment and created a preventive maintenance plan. The Navy was impressed, and a relationship developed from there, culminating in Tuesday’s agreement.

“We are helping critical assets survive as long as possible and never go down,” Rosarian said. “I want to live in a world where ships don’t go through maintenance cycles, because we only know what’s broken and what needs to be fixed while they’re actually deployed. Whether it’s military assets or power plants, that’s my vision for the future.”