US Navy turns to hull-climbing bots to combat maintenance backlog
regional naval maintenance centers, the Navy could save 575 equivalent drydock days per year, Gecko claimed.
"We are proud to have a mature technology that has been tested and approved by both Navy technical leaders and the sustainment officials charged with reducing the Navy's maintenance backlog," said Jake Loosararian, Gecko's CEO and co-founder. The US Navy had previously approved Gecko's Rapid Ultrasonic Gridding inspection process, which uses the climbing robots to collect thickness maps of material like ship hulls facing constant corrosion risks from salt water and exposure to the elements. Those are in turn used to build digital twins of ships onto which thickness measurements are overlaid to indicate which parts of the ship need the most attention.
Gecko has been approved to perform inspections on the Navy's first amphibious assault ships and Arleigh Burke class destroyers. The company also has a contract with the US Air Force, which tapped it late last year to perform inspections at ICBM sites overseen through theProgram. Gecko has also been used in the oil and gas, manufacturing and energy industries, including in the United Arab Emirates, thanks to a deal signed late last year with that country's Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology to provide its bots for infrastructure inspections.
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