working on a school project, need help

Hello I am new to all this so please bare with me

We have an ABB robot in our faculty, IRB 1200 to be precise, it is close to a CNC machine and my professor had an idea to create a safety parameter around the robot, SafeMove came to mind but I know that IRB 1200 does not support SafeMove, atleast the one we have.. I already created a station in RobotStudio, with the exact same robot, tool used on the robot and the CNC machine, with the purpose of being a simulation. I went through the application manual on how to configure SafeMove, yet I don't know how to run or test what I've configured..

But nontheless I'm wondering of an alternative, since our faculty probably will not upgrade our current system with SafeMove.

I am thinking of this..To create a safety parameter around the robot cell using light curtains or line sensors, which can be wired on the control panel on the backside of the robot (am I right here?). If possible, I would read the triggering of the sensors via RAPID (is there a line of code that enables me to do so?), while the robot is in a continous cycle of motion, there would be an IF() statement inside the code there, which when set to true (triggering of the sensors?) would stop the motion of the robot.

I hope I made some sense in all of this, I'm just experimenting a bit, trying to think outside the box with what is possible to be achieved, I am thankful in advance to any help and answers you can provide me with.

Cheers,
Anton