Chelmsford-Made Robot Helping With Fla. Condo Collapse Rescue

CHELMSFORD, MA — A robot developed in Massachusetts joined the rescue effort in Surfside, Florida, to help search for signs of life underneath a pile of rubble left behind from when a large apartment building collapsed.

The robot came from Teledyne FLIR, a California company that devlops robots in Massachusetts at its Chelmsford facility. Company vice president Tom Frost told NBC 10 Boston the 5-pound robot is equipped with a specialized camera that can fit into small places and search for signs of life underneath the rubble of a collapsed 12-story building, that left at least four people dead and another 159 missing.

"This robot is small enough to go into those voids, travel down in areas people can’t go and provide that feedback via video camera and microphone," Frost told NBC 10 Boston.

This isn't the first rescue mission for robots developed at Teledyne FLIR. An early version of the robot used in Florida was deployed at Ground Zero on 9/11. The company's robots were also used in the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.