obituaries

Remote Patrol from page 72

commander of the unit, stood beside a
small TOMCAR — designed by G-NIUS
Unmanned Ground Systems and equipped
with nine cameras, a microphone and
a megaphone — and listed the array of
threats facing troops on the border: snip-
ers, tunnels, abductions, anti-tank mis-
siles, mines.
As a result, he said, along the southern
part of the Israel-Gaza fence, the army
does not routinely send flesh-and-blood
troops to the vulnerable area.
That "vacuum," Goldstein added, is
filled by cameras, sensors, surveillance
posts armed with remote-controlled
machine guns, and, performing the daily
patrols, unmanned ground vehicles.

Women Operators
The first-generation vehicle, the Mark I, is
operated from a small room in the southern
brigade's surveillance headquarters fur-
nished with two purple orthopedic chairs
and four large monitors. The operators,
female soldiers, sit in front of a steering
wheel, their feet near an accelerator and
brake pedal, and send the car off to patrol a
preprogrammed route like a plane on auto-
pilot. If they see something suspicious, they
can override the autopilot and drive the car.

The unit opened its doors recently to
describe its current operations and future
goals.
Pvt. May Krispin, a young vehicle opera-
tor, said that in the past male soldiers used
to drive the cars but had showed they
"weren't serious:' treating the vehicles "like
a PlayStation" and rolling up to gas stations
on occasion. But she said she was unde-
terred.
"That's why I came here in the first
place declared Krispin. "They said they
were looking for serious female soldiers to
serve in a hot region:"
During the car's first week in action,
it triggered a mine, sending a section of
the border fence flying and damaging the
vehicle, but resulting in no loss of life.
"The ultimate goal is to save human
lives:' Goldstein said, "so it fulfilled its
mission in full."
During Operation Protective Edge
in Gaza this summer, the border was
swamped with combat troops and the
remote-controlled technology was drafted
into a new line of service — logistical sup-
port.
Noting that American and British forces
in Afghanistan and Iraq "suffered hun-
dreds of casualties" while driving supplies

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December 4 • 2014

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Obituaries

Pvt. May Krispin shows off a Mark I unmanned ground vehicle.

in and out of the field, Goldstein said that
some armored personnel carriers were
outfitted with the technology and sent into
Gaza to deliver supplies.
In the coming months, the army is set
to deploy the Mark III model of remote-
controlled Ford F-350 trucks, which will
be able to respond to threats with an
advanced mounted weapons system.
The shift changes the unmanned
vehicle's role in two fundamental ways.

First, as a supply vehicle operating off
the charted path, Goldstein explained, its
operators will encounter much difficulty.
including fallen wires and trees and vary-
ing topography.
Second, as the unit's scope of operations
expands to more border areas, the new
vehicle, equipped with a remote-controlled
machine gun, also puts female soldiers
behind the wheel in a role akin to that of a
combat sniper.

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