Gecko Robotics brings robotic inspection technology to US Pacific Fleet

Gecko Robotics' TOKA 5 robotic inspection system that uses ultrasonic sensor technology on display at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space exhibition in April 2026 (Janes/Jeremiah Cushman)

The US Navy has awarded a five-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a ceiling of USD71 million to Gecko Robotics “to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to assess and maintain the health of military assets”, according to a company statement on 17 March.

An initial award is valued at USD54 million and covers 18 ships in the US Pacific Fleet, including destroyers, amphibious warships, and littoral combat ships, the statement said.

“Gecko's advanced AI and robotic technology identify repairs up to 50 times faster and more accurately than manual methods, reducing maintenance delays and boosting battle readiness,” the company claimed.

Gecko's technology

Gecko Robotics' technology “collects structural health data of the built world”, Ed Bryner, chief technology officer for Gecko Robotics, told Janes on 20 April during the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space exhibition in National Harbor, Maryland.

“We started in facilities and we've moved into exquisite systems, ships, aircraft, etc,” Bryner said. The company collects high-fidelity non-destructive testing (NDT) data, fuses multiple data sources, including historical and operational data, and uses the resulting context graph to find areas that need work, he explained.

Gecko Robotics works with the navy on both manufacturing and sustainment, Bryner said. On the sustainment side, mobile robotic systems collect data while a ship is pier side “so that our software can analyse and understand what needs to be repaired when the ship comes into dry dock”, he said.

Traditionally, such data is collected after a ship is in dry dock and takes several weeks or months, Bryner said, noting that “this is where growth work typically happens”.