Using AI to Identify Hazards with Robots

How Saphira AI Transforms Hazard Identification for Safer Robotics Systems

As robotics systems advance in capability, complexity, and autonomy, ensuring their safety becomes increasingly challenging. Engineers and safety teams must anticipate how robotic systems might fail, behave unexpectedly, or interact dangerously with people or their environments. Traditional hazard identification processes are manual, time-intensive, and often reactive. Saphira AI is transforming this process by helping robotics teams proactively identify hazards using artificial intelligence—making safety engineering faster, smarter, and more scalable.

Bootstrapping Hazard Analysis in Minutes

With Saphira AI, robotic system developers can initiate a risk assessment in under five minutes. The platform allows users to quickly create a project, define relevant tasks, and immediately trigger automatic hazard inference. Whether importing an existing spreadsheet or entering hazards manually, the system is designed to reduce ramp-up time while improving consistency and accuracy. Hazards are analyzed based on your selected standards—such as ISO 10218 for industrial robots, ISO 13849 for functional safety, or IEC 61508 for broader applications—and are automatically evaluated with structured risk graphs.

The platform's intuitive interface guides users through the initial setup process, automatically suggesting relevant standards based on the robot type and application. This eliminates the guesswork involved in traditional hazard analysis and ensures that teams start with the right framework from day one.

Automated Inference for Deeper Insights

What sets Saphira apart is its "Infer Field" functionality. Once hazards are entered, users can trigger the AI to automatically analyze each entry for severity, exposure, and controllability. These risk parameters are not generic estimates—they're derived from real-world safety standards and customized configurations. This automated process surfaces hazards that may not have been considered manually, identifies likely failure chains, and classifies risks based on the system architecture and application context.

The AI engine can identify:

• Mechanical hazards like pinch points, crushing, or unexpected movements
• Electrical hazards including shock risks and power-related failures
• Software hazards such as control system failures or decision-making errors
• Environmental hazards related to operating conditions and human interaction
• Integration hazards that arise when multiple systems work together

Visualizing and Filtering Risks Across Systems

The Trace Graph view and Table View make it easy for teams to review hazard information and filter for high-risk areas, such as items with high residual risk or missing controls. Engineers can quickly isolate the most critical safety concerns and prioritize responses, supported by built-in traceability to control measures, safety functions, and regulatory clauses. The ability to instantly search and filter risk data across an entire robotics project ensures that no hazard is overlooked.

Saphira's visualization tools provide:

• Risk heat maps showing concentration of high-risk areas
• Dependency graphs illustrating how hazards relate to system components
• Timeline views for tracking hazard evolution throughout the project lifecycle
• Filtering capabilities by risk level, standard, or component

Aligning with Standards and Regulations

Saphira doesn't just identify hazards—it aligns every part of the analysis with relevant standards. Whether you're targeting CE Marking, UL certification, or compliance with ISO 10218, the platform ensures every hazard entry, risk score, and mitigation measure is mapped to applicable regulatory requirements. These connections are automatically tracked and available throughout the system for use in safety case documentation, technical file exports, or external audits.

The platform supports major robotics standards:

• ISO 10218 for industrial robot safety
• ISO 13849 for functional safety of control systems
• IEC 61508 for functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable systems
• ANSI/RIA R15.06 for industrial robot safety in the US
• CE Marking requirements for European markets

Supporting Collaborative Safety Reviews

Hazard identification doesn't end with analysis—it requires team review and validation. Saphira provides tools for collaborative safety reviews, including the ability to append validation details, view traceability from design documents or codebases, and associate test plans with identified hazards. Automatically generated verification & validation checklists ensure that each identified risk is paired with testable, trackable safety responses.

Collaborative features include:

• Team commenting on specific hazards and controls
• Review workflows with approval tracking
• Version control for hazard analysis evolution
• Integration with design and testing tools
• Audit trails for compliance documentation

From Hazards to Safety Cases—Seamlessly

The strength of Saphira's hazard analysis lies in how it connects to the broader safety lifecycle. Identified hazards are not siloed—they feed directly into automated safety case generation, control measure mapping, test plan development, and compliance reporting. Teams can confidently move from identifying hazards to proving compliance, all in one integrated workflow.

This seamless integration means:

• Automatic safety case generation based on identified hazards
• Control measure mapping to specific hazards and requirements
• Test plan development aligned with hazard analysis
• Compliance reporting with full traceability
• Continuous updates as the system evolves

Key Benefits for Robotics Teams

Accelerated Time to Market

• Hazard identification in minutes instead of weeks
• Automated risk assessment reduces manual effort
• Faster iteration cycles for safety improvements

Improved Accuracy and Completeness

• AI-powered hazard inference catches overlooked risks
• Standards-based analysis ensures regulatory compliance
• Comprehensive traceability prevents missing requirements

Enhanced Collaboration

• Centralized platform for team safety reviews
• Real-time updates and notifications
• Clear audit trails for compliance

Cost Reduction

• Reduced reliance on external safety consultants
• Faster certification cycles
• Fewer safety-related delays in product development

Real-World Applications

Saphira's AI-powered hazard identification is helping robotics companies across industries:

• Manufacturing robots identifying mechanical and software hazards
• Collaborative robots analyzing human-robot interaction risks
• Mobile robots mapping environmental and navigation hazards
• Service robots evaluating public interaction safety
• Autonomous systems identifying AI decision-making risks

Getting Started with AI-Powered Hazard Identification

Smarter hazard identification leads to safer robotics systems. With Saphira AI, robotics developers can move beyond static, checklist-based methods and adopt a more dynamic, responsive approach to safety engineering.

Ready to transform your robotics hazard identification process?
Book a demo with Saphira to see how AI can make your robotics systems safer and more compliant.

By using AI to automate hazard identification, robotics companies can move beyond static, checklist-based methods and adopt a more dynamic, responsive approach to safety. Saphira makes this possible by combining advanced inference, real-time standards guidance, and system-wide traceability in a single, scalable platform.

With Saphira AI, robotics developers are better equipped to foresee potential failures, respond with confidence, and bring safer, compliant systems to market—faster than ever before.