ABB SafeMove and Robot Safety in the AI Era

From the 1979 Flat Rock robot death and fenced cells to AI backdoors in robot models, and how ABB SafeMove, GoFa and the E-Device keep a safety layer apart.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/26/20261 min read

In January 1979, Robert Williams was killed by a parts-retrieval robot at Ford's Flat Rock casting plant in Michigan, the first recorded death caused by a robot. Kenji Urada died at a Kawasaki plant in Japan two years later. For decades the fix was simple: keep the robot behind a fence and keep people out.

Yellow-posted wire mesh safety fence around an automated machine next to a conveyor
Yellow-posted wire mesh safety fence around an automated machine next to a conveyor

Mesh safety fencing around an automated machine on a factory floor. Photo: Machine4545 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Most factories still work that way. A fenced welding cell has an interlocked gate, so opening it stops the robot, and light curtains do the same job where a fence would get in the way.

Welding cell enclosed by yellow posts, red screens and mesh guarding in a factory
Welding cell enclosed by yellow posts, red screens and mesh guarding in a factory

A robotic welding cell with guarding and safety screens. Photo: WireCrafters / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

AI models open up a different kind of risk. A 16 September IEEE Spectrum article from security firm VicOne describes hidden triggers, backdoors planted in a robot's AI model. In the 2025 GoBA study, an ordinary coffee mug set off the backdoor 97% of the time while the robot behaved normally otherwise. UniPwn, a Bluetooth exploit chain found in quadruped and humanoid robots, could spread from one robot to the next.

Grey four-legged robot dog standing in snow
Grey four-legged robot dog standing in snow

A Unitree Go2 quadruped robot used by the Romanian mountain rescue service Salvamont, 2025. Photo: HotNews Romania / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

ABB planned for a program going wrong long before AI arrived. SafeMove, its safety software, runs as a separately certified function in the controller and checks the robot's speed and position. If the arm leaves its permitted zone or moves too fast near people, it slows or stops, whatever the main program asks.

Two people at a desk in front of an ABB robot working inside a glass-walled cell
Two people at a desk in front of an ABB robot working inside a glass-walled cell

Engineers at work beside an ABB robot cell run by the OmniCore controller. Photo: ABB

GoFa cobots add power and force limiting from torque sensors in every joint. ABB's new E-Device, launched this month, lets a tablet act as the teach pendant but keeps a hardware emergency stop and enabling switch on it, so a software fault on the tablet can't take away the stop button.

White ABB GoFa cobot arm handling cylinders on a wooden table in an office
White ABB GoFa cobot arm handling cylinders on a wooden table in an office

An ABB GoFa cobot working at an open table, with no fence. Photo: ABB

Home robots will need the same thinking. ISO is revising ISO 13482, its safety standard for personal care robots, last updated in 2014. I'd copy what factories learned: let the AI choose what to do, and keep a plain, independent safety layer that decides how fast and how far the robot may move.

Single-arm ABB YuMi robot beside a handheld FlexPendant screen on a white bench
Single-arm ABB YuMi robot beside a handheld FlexPendant screen on a white bench

An ABB YuMi single-arm robot with its FlexPendant. Photo: ABB

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