Gecko Robotics partners with Anduril to aid submarine manufacturing

PITTSBURGH — North Shore-headquartered Gecko Robotics is partnering with Anduril Industries, a major tech company with which it shares an investor.

Orange County, California-headquartered Anduril was founded in 2017 by a team of entrepreneurs, including Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey. The company is focused on developing technology for the U.S. Department of War, including unmanned aerial systems and surveillance systems, which has garnered controversial attention from human rights organizations. But controversy has not stopped the company’s growth, and recently it announced plans to build a $3.7 billion shipyard in Baltimore County, Maryland to support production of submarines, dubbed Arsenal-2.

Gecko, which was founded in 2013 by CEO Jake Loosararian and President Troy Demmer, utilizes a suite of robotics to perform inspections of things that would be difficult or dangerous for a human to complete. Its technology will be used at a new factory in Orange County, which will manufacture components for the submarines. The factory is being referred to as a “protofactory,” as it will also do prototyping.