A man was crushed to death by a robot in South Korea after the machine apparently failed to differentiate him from the boxes of produce it was handling, the Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday.
The man, a robotics company worker in his 40s, was inspecting the robot`s sensor operations at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang province.
The industrial robot, which was lifting boxes filled with bell peppers and placing them on a pallet, appears to have malfunctioned and identified the man as a box, Yonhap reported citing the police.
The robotic arm pushed the man`s upper body down against the conveyor belt, crushing his face and chest, according to Yonhap.
He was transferred to the hospital but died later, the report said.
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.
