A man in South Korea was crushed to death by a robot that mistook him for one of the food boxes it was handling, according to reports,
The incident happened as the man, a 40-year-old employee of a robotics company, was examining the robot.
As the man thought he was a box of veggies, the robotic arm grabbed him and pushed him against the conveyer belt, crushing his face and chest, according to Yonhap, a South Korean news agency.
He passed away after being admitted to the hospital. As per Yonhap, the robot was assigned the task of hoisting pepper boxes and placing them onto pallets.
According to the agency, which quotes police, the man had been examining the robot’s sensor functions in advance of its test run at the pepper sorting plant in South Gyeongsang province on November 8.
The test was originally scheduled for November 6, but owing to issues with the robot’s sensor, it had to be postponed by two days.
The man, an employee of the company that made the robotic arm, was checking the device late on Wednesday night when it broke down.
In a statement after the incident, an official from the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex, which owns the plant, called for a “precise and safe” system to be established.
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.