A robot in a South Korean factory crushed a man it couldn’t distinguish from the crates it was handling. The victim was an employee of a robot manufacturing company who came to inspect a robotic arm built for a factory sorting and processing peppers. The robot mistook him for a box of vegetables, pressed his body against the conveyor belt, and crushed his chest and face. The man was taken to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, BBC News reported.
A robotic arm was built to lift boxes of peppers and transfer them to pallets. The man was checking how the robot’s sensors were working before it was put into operation for a trial run.
The robot was originally supposed to be connected on a trial basis already on Monday, but the launch was postponed precisely because of problems with the sensors. An employee of the robotics company was checking them late into the night when the accident happened.
In March, a 50-year-old South Korean man was seriously injured when he was caught and imprisoned by a robot while working at an auto parts factory, the BBC recalled.
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