Robotics company creates AI that does engineering work by climbing walls

August 2024 · 2 minute read

Gecko Robotics, based out of Pittsburgh, said it is using AI to find problems before they happen at nuclear reactors, boilers, pipelines, tanks, and ships.

With robots that can climb walls, Gecko Robotics said its mission is to protect some of the world's most important assets.

Company founder and CEO Jake Loosararian said this dream started as a student at Grove City College, and now he's beginning to partner power plants that are using the software he is calling Cantilever.

“What those robots are doing is they're gathering information and data as it relates to the health of the structures,” Loosararian said. “The software was targeted at specifically using our unique data sets that we've been collecting for the last 11 years since I started Gecko out of my college dorm room.”

He said making the AI able to climb walls is inspired by a trip to a powerplant in Oil City when he was in college.

“The guy who was gathering information to see if the power plant was going to have a forced outage,” Loosararian said, “Fell and died doing that inspection.”

The robot is remote control operated and according to Loosararian takes about half the time doing the engineering jobs. He said it does require some human help.

Loosararian said he understands the fear some people show toward artificial intelligence progress.

“I think it's right to be skeptical of technology, but it's more important to prioritize health, safety, and actually doing the job right,” Loosararian said.

At least for now, Cantilever should not fully push out the human jobs according to Loosararian.

Loosararian said, “Ones that don't adopt these useful pieces of tech are very much at risk of not just providing solutions to the community that they need to be relied on, but also folks jobs are going to be at risk if you can't figure out better ways to actually operate these facilities.”

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