A tragic incident in South Korea involved a man who lost his life when a robot failed to distinguish him from boxes of food it was handling.
The victim, a man in his 40s and an employee of a robotics company, was inspecting the robot when the accident occurred.
The robot’s robotic arm, mistaking the man for a box of vegetables, gripped him and pushed his body against a conveyor belt, causing fatal injuries to his face and chest.
Despite being rushed to the hospital, he did not survive.
According to reports by South Korean news agency Yonhap, the robot’s primary task was to lift boxes of peppers and move them onto pallets.
The man had been conducting tests on the robot’s sensor functions in preparation for its upcoming trial run at a pepper sorting plant in South Gyeongsang province, initially scheduled for November 8.
The trial had been postponed by two days due to sensor issues with the robot.
The man, an employee of the company that manufactured the robotic arm, was working late into the night to assess the machine when the malfunction occurred.
Following the tragic incident, an official from the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex, which owns the plant, emphasized the need for a “precise and safe” system to be established.
This incident is not the first of its kind in South Korea, as in March, another man in his 50s suffered severe injuries after being trapped by a robot while working at an automobile parts manufacturing plant.
Source-BBC
