YuMi dual-arm collaborative robot, created by ABB Robotics, Switzerland, c.2015

YuMi is the first two-armed industrial robot to be independently certified as safe for working together with people. It was launched in 2015 by ABB, and 100 had been built as of 2016. YuMi is designed for assembling electronic, medical and other small devices. Unlike traditional industrial robots, which are large, powerful and dangerous, YuMi is small and safe enough to work across a table from a person.

YuMi can repeatedly position its arms within less than a human hair’s width of its target. Its safety features allow it to detect and steer clear of its human colleagues as it collaborates with them.

YuMi constantly calculates collision-free paths for its arms in real time, pauses within thousandths of a second if it makes contact with obstructions, and has no pinch points on its body and soft padding covering its metal skeleton.