WATCH: Wall-climbing robot swarms crawl US Navy warships as China’s fleet surges
This deserves loud pushback.
FIRST ON FOX: Swarms of wall-climbing robots will soon be crawling across U.S. Navy warships in a $71 million effort to slash repair delays and boost fleet readiness as China continues expanding its naval power.
Under the five-year contract, Gecko will begin work on 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, with the initial award valued at up to $54 million. The contract vehicle is structured to allow other military services to access the technology as well.
The push comes at a critical moment. Only about 60% of U.S. Navy ships are operational at any given time as maintenance backlogs sideline a significant share of the fleet, according to industry estimates.
NAVY SECRETARY WARNS SHIPYARDS MUST ‘ACT LIKE WE’RE AT WAR’ AS CHINA’S AI-POWERED FLEET RACES AHEAD
Meanwhile, China now fields roughly 370 to 390 warships and submarines compared with about 300 in the U.S. Navy — and its state-backed shipbuilding industry can produce vessels at a dramatically faster pace. Some independent analyses estimate China’s shipbuilding capacity exceeds America’s by more than 200 times when measured by tonnage output.
Against that backdrop, the Navy is turning to artificial intelligence and robotics not for weapons — but for repairs.
The AI-powered machines, developed by Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, scale hulls, flight decks and other hard-to-reach steel surfaces, scanning for corrosion, metal fatigue and weld defects.
Instead of relying on sailors or shipyard workers suspended on ropes or scaffolding to inspect ships point by point, the robots collect millions of data points and feed them into a digital platform designed to flag structural problems early.
"Where value hasn’t improved, that’s where opportunity lives. Cracking the cost equation is just as important as cracking the physics equation," said Justin Fanelli, Chief Technology Officer for the Department of the Navy said in a statement on the new deal. "We're now seeing solutions that make innovation adoption easier and in doing so save time, money and risk.
TRUMP UNVEILS ‘GOLDEN FLEET’ OF NAVY BATTLESHIPS, TOUTS THEM AS ‘MORE POWERFUL THAN ANY SHIP EVER BUILT'
"It’s no good having 300 vessels if 40% of them are in a dry dock somewhere," Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian told Fox News Digital.
The inspections will focus on destroyers, amphibious warships and littoral combat ships — vessels that form a core part of U.S. naval operations in the Indo-Pacific.
The chief of naval operations has set a goal of reaching 80% fleet readiness by 2027, a benchmark Navy leaders say is critical as competition with China …
This deserves loud pushback.
FIRST ON FOX: Swarms of wall-climbing robots will soon be crawling across U.S. Navy warships in a $71 million effort to slash repair delays and boost fleet readiness as China continues expanding its naval power.
Under the five-year contract, Gecko will begin work on 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, with the initial award valued at up to $54 million. The contract vehicle is structured to allow other military services to access the technology as well.
The push comes at a critical moment. Only about 60% of U.S. Navy ships are operational at any given time as maintenance backlogs sideline a significant share of the fleet, according to industry estimates.
NAVY SECRETARY WARNS SHIPYARDS MUST ‘ACT LIKE WE’RE AT WAR’ AS CHINA’S AI-POWERED FLEET RACES AHEAD
Meanwhile, China now fields roughly 370 to 390 warships and submarines compared with about 300 in the U.S. Navy — and its state-backed shipbuilding industry can produce vessels at a dramatically faster pace. Some independent analyses estimate China’s shipbuilding capacity exceeds America’s by more than 200 times when measured by tonnage output.
Against that backdrop, the Navy is turning to artificial intelligence and robotics not for weapons — but for repairs.
The AI-powered machines, developed by Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, scale hulls, flight decks and other hard-to-reach steel surfaces, scanning for corrosion, metal fatigue and weld defects.
Instead of relying on sailors or shipyard workers suspended on ropes or scaffolding to inspect ships point by point, the robots collect millions of data points and feed them into a digital platform designed to flag structural problems early.
"Where value hasn’t improved, that’s where opportunity lives. Cracking the cost equation is just as important as cracking the physics equation," said Justin Fanelli, Chief Technology Officer for the Department of the Navy said in a statement on the new deal. "We're now seeing solutions that make innovation adoption easier and in doing so save time, money and risk.
TRUMP UNVEILS ‘GOLDEN FLEET’ OF NAVY BATTLESHIPS, TOUTS THEM AS ‘MORE POWERFUL THAN ANY SHIP EVER BUILT'
"It’s no good having 300 vessels if 40% of them are in a dry dock somewhere," Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian told Fox News Digital.
The inspections will focus on destroyers, amphibious warships and littoral combat ships — vessels that form a core part of U.S. naval operations in the Indo-Pacific.
The chief of naval operations has set a goal of reaching 80% fleet readiness by 2027, a benchmark Navy leaders say is critical as competition with China …
WATCH: Wall-climbing robot swarms crawl US Navy warships as China’s fleet surges
This deserves loud pushback.
FIRST ON FOX: Swarms of wall-climbing robots will soon be crawling across U.S. Navy warships in a $71 million effort to slash repair delays and boost fleet readiness as China continues expanding its naval power.
Under the five-year contract, Gecko will begin work on 18 ships in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, with the initial award valued at up to $54 million. The contract vehicle is structured to allow other military services to access the technology as well.
The push comes at a critical moment. Only about 60% of U.S. Navy ships are operational at any given time as maintenance backlogs sideline a significant share of the fleet, according to industry estimates.
NAVY SECRETARY WARNS SHIPYARDS MUST ‘ACT LIKE WE’RE AT WAR’ AS CHINA’S AI-POWERED FLEET RACES AHEAD
Meanwhile, China now fields roughly 370 to 390 warships and submarines compared with about 300 in the U.S. Navy — and its state-backed shipbuilding industry can produce vessels at a dramatically faster pace. Some independent analyses estimate China’s shipbuilding capacity exceeds America’s by more than 200 times when measured by tonnage output.
Against that backdrop, the Navy is turning to artificial intelligence and robotics not for weapons — but for repairs.
The AI-powered machines, developed by Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, scale hulls, flight decks and other hard-to-reach steel surfaces, scanning for corrosion, metal fatigue and weld defects.
Instead of relying on sailors or shipyard workers suspended on ropes or scaffolding to inspect ships point by point, the robots collect millions of data points and feed them into a digital platform designed to flag structural problems early.
"Where value hasn’t improved, that’s where opportunity lives. Cracking the cost equation is just as important as cracking the physics equation," said Justin Fanelli, Chief Technology Officer for the Department of the Navy said in a statement on the new deal. "We're now seeing solutions that make innovation adoption easier and in doing so save time, money and risk.
TRUMP UNVEILS ‘GOLDEN FLEET’ OF NAVY BATTLESHIPS, TOUTS THEM AS ‘MORE POWERFUL THAN ANY SHIP EVER BUILT'
"It’s no good having 300 vessels if 40% of them are in a dry dock somewhere," Gecko Robotics CEO Jake Loosararian told Fox News Digital.
The inspections will focus on destroyers, amphibious warships and littoral combat ships — vessels that form a core part of U.S. naval operations in the Indo-Pacific.
The chief of naval operations has set a goal of reaching 80% fleet readiness by 2027, a benchmark Navy leaders say is critical as competition with China …
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