Kenji Urada

Kenji Urada (c. 1944 – July 4, 1981) was a Japanese engineer who was killed by a robot. Urada is often said to be the first person killed by a robot, but a worker at a Ford Motor Company factory in Michigan by the name of Robert Williams was killed by a robot over two years earlier on January 25, 1979.

Urada was maintenance engineer at a Kawasaki Heavy Industries plant. While working on a broken robot, he failed to turn it off completely, resulting in the robot pushing him into a grinding machine with its hydraulic arm. He died as a result. The circumstances of his death were not made public until December 8, after an investigation by the labor standards bureau was completed.