Israel makes military robotics advances

TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Israel is moving quickly into an era of military robotics, military officials and contractors say.

The country is busily developing an army of military robots, such as the Guardium unmanned ground vehicle, which drives itself along the Gaza and Lebanese borders, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

"We're trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield for each platoon in the field," Lt. Col. Oren Berebbi, head of the Israel Defense Forces' technology branch, told the newspaper. "We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk."

"We are moving into the robotic era," added Giora Katz, vice president of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., one of Israel's leading weapons manufacturers, who predicted that within 10 to 15 years, one-third of Israel's military machines will be unmanned.

Thomas Tate, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel now overseeing defense cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, told the Journal, "The Israelis do (military robotics) differently, not because they're more clever than we are, but because they live in a tough neighborhood and need to respond fast to operational issues."