Autonomous welding robots

A computer-implemented method of generating welding instructions for a welding robot, the computer-implemented method comprising:

• determining a first position of a candidate seam on a first plurality of points representing a weldable object;
• generating a second plurality of points representing the weldable object, wherein the first plurality of points and the second plurality of points originate from different sources;
• identifying a second position of the candidate seam on the weldable object using the second plurality of points and the first position;
• deforming a subset of the first plurality of points in accordance with a subset of the second plurality of points;
• and
• generating welding instructions for a welding robot based at least in part on the second position of the candidate seam.

A robotic welding system comprising:

• a robot controller configured to:
• identify an expected position of a candidate seam on a part to be welded based on a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model of the part, the CAD model includes an annotation of the candidate seam;
• scan a workspace containing the part to produce a representation of the part;
• identify the candidate seam on the part based on the representation of the part and the expected position of the candidate seam;
• determine an actual shape of the candidate seam;
• and
• generate welding instructions for a welding robot based at least in part on the actual shape of the candidate seam.