A man has been killed by a robot in South Korea after the robot failed to differentiate him from the boxes of food it was handling.
The incident occurred when the man, a robotics company employee in his 40s, was inspecting the robot.
The robotic arm, confusing the man for a box of vegetables, grabbed him and pushed his body against the conveyer belt, crushing his face and chest, he was rushed to hospital but succumbed to his injuries
According to reports, the robot was responsible for lifting boxes of peppers and transferring them onto pallets.
The man had been checking the robot’s sensor operations ahead of its test run at the pepper sorting plant in South Gyeongsang province, scheduled for today 8 November.
The test had been originally been planned for 6 November, but was pushed back by two days due to problems with the robot’s sensor.
The man, a worker from the company that manufactured the robotic arm, was running checks on the machine late into the night when it malfunctioned.
In March, a South Korean man in his 50s suffered serious injuries after getting trapped by a robot while working at an automobile parts manufacturing plant.
