Patent ID: 8569651

Claim:
A robotic welding system comprising: a robot arm; a welder carried by the robot arm; a workpiece support defining a workpiece holding area within a work area of the welder; a power source network configured to provide power to the robot arm and the workpiece support; and a robotic controller having an interface for receiving inputs from an external location, and a program storage area storing at least one of (i) a family of individual open loop control programs, at least some of the individual control programs of the family of individual open loop control programs capable of operating with a plurality of different sized workpieces; and (ii) a single open loop control program capable of receiving values representing particular sizes of the plurality of different sized workpieces, the values replacing variables within the single open loop control program, such replacement customizing the single open loop control program for operation with a particular workpiece, of the plurality of different sized workpieces, having a size corresponding to the received values, the at least one of (i) the family of open loop control programs and (ii) the single open loop control program, including instructions to control actions of at least one of the robot welding arm, the welder, and the workpiece support, wherein the robotic welding system is capable of operating on each of the plurality different sized workpieces, and wherein the at least one of (i) the family of open loop control programs and (ii) the single open loop control program is capable of operating without feedback during operation.