Robot incidents in 2015
The Machine Record holds 6 incidents involving commercial robots in 2015, most involving NASA: 5 where a person was hurt, 4 of them fatal, and 0 that reached a regulator, a recall or a court.
Counts measure what was reported in English and cleared verification, not how many events took place. Fleet sizes are not public, so none of this is a rate. The rules are on the methodology page.
By kind of machine
- Robot arm4
- Consumer1
- Humanoid1
By company
- NASA1
- Volkswagen1
By outcome
- fatality4
- minor injury1
- no harm1
Cases
Every case dated 2015
Newest first. Each one links to its timeline and to the sources it rests on.
- 2015-08-14A robot arm killed a co-worker at a car factory in India.Follow-up
- 2015-07-07A worker at Ventra Ionia Main was trapped by robotic machinery and pronounced dead at the scene in Ionia, Michigan.Report
- 2015-07-01A technician was killed at a Volkswagen assembly plant in Germany after a robot he was assembling picked him up and pushed him into a metal plate.Follow-up
- 2015-06-29A 22-year-old contract worker installing a production line at a Volkswagen plant in Baunatal, Germany, was grabbed and crushed against a large metal plate by a robotic arm, dying from his injuries in hospital.Follow-up
- 2015-02-05A Korean housewife's hair was sucked into a robot vacuum cleaner causing an incident at home.Follow-up
- 2015-01-01NASA's Robonaut 2 humanoid robot, developed with General Motors and installed on the International Space Station, suffered progressive hardware failures beginning in 2015 traced to a missing ground cable and was being returned to Earth for repairs as of February 2018.Report