Robot incidents in 2016
The Machine Record holds 7 incidents involving commercial robots in 2016, most involving iRobot: 6 where a person was hurt, 4 of them fatal, and 3 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 arm3
- Consumer1
- Other1
- Service1
- Surgical1
By company
- iRobot1
- Knightscope1
By outcome
- fatality4
- minor injury1
- property damage1
- serious injury1
Cases
Every case dated 2016
Newest first. Each one links to its timeline and to the sources it rests on.
- 2016-08-15A Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner ran over dog feces and spread the mess across every surface throughout a home in Little Rock, Arkansas.Report
- 2016-07-14A Knightscope K5 security robot ran over a 16-month-old toddler, a person, at a shopping centre in Silicon Valley, leaving him with swelling to his right foot.Report
- 2016-07-07Dallas PD used a robot to kill a suspect after negotiations failed during a standoff.Report
- 2016-06-18Twenty-year-old a person was crushed to death inside a robotic welding station at the Ajin USA facility in Cusseta, Alabama, when the robot abruptly restarted while she and co-workers were clearing a sensor fault.Lawsuit
- 2016-06-18a person, a 20-year-old worker at Ajin USA metal stamping plant in Chambers County, Alabama, was crushed to death on June 18, 2016, when a robotic arm started up while she was inside a machinery enclosure troubleshooting a sensor fault without following required lockout/tagout procedures.Report
- 2016-06-18a person, 20, was killed when a robot at the Ajin USA plant in Cusseta, Alabama restarted abruptly while she was inside a robotic station clearing a sensor fault on a stopped assembly line.Lawsuit
- 2016-04-22$30M surgical robot defect trial settles during jury deliberationsSettlement