Industrial robot in South Korea confuses man with boxes, kills him

A robot in South Korea crushed a man to death after the machine apparently failed to differentiate him from the boxes of produce it was handling, the Yonhap  news agency reported on Wednesday. 
 

The man was a 40-year old robotics company worker and was inspecting the robot’s sensor at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang on Tuesday night. The machine, which was lifting boxes of peppers onto a pallet, reportedly grabbed the man with its arm and pushed him against the conveyer belt, crushing his face and chest. The robot appears to have malfunctioned and identified the man as a box, police sources said. 
 

The Police are now preparing to launch an investigation into the site's safety managers for possible negligence in duties. An official from the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex, which owns the plant, called for a ‘precise and safe’ system to be established in a statement after the incident, Daily Mail reported. The man had reportedly filled in to conduct tests originally planned for November 6.
 

In March this year, a 50-year old South Korean man suffered serious injuries after getting trapped by a robot while working at an automobile parts manufacturing plant.
 

And last July, footage emerged of a chess-playing robot breaking a child's finger during a match in Russia.
 

The robot grabbed the seven-year-old boy’s finger at the Moscow Open because it was confused by his overly-quick movements, Russian media outlets reported. Sergey Lazarev, vice-president of the Russian Chess Federation, said the child had violated ‘certain safety rules’ by making a move too soon.

In the past…
 

• March 2023: Robot trapped an automobile worker who suffered serious injuries in South Korea
   
• July 2022: Chess-playing robot broke a child’s finger during a match in Russia