A man has been crushed to death by a robot in South Korea after it failed to differentiate him from the boxes of food it was handling, reports say. 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, South Korean news agency Yonhap said.
He was sent to hospital but later died.
According to Yonhap, 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 8 November, the agency adds, quoting police.
The man, a worker from the company that manufactured the robotic arm, was running checks on the machine late into the night on Wednesday when it malfunctioned.
Credit: bbc.com
