S Korean man killed by industrial robot

SEOUL: 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 on 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.