The versatility of automated composite technologies granted the possibility of manufacturing laminates with a continuous variation of fiber orientation, also known as Variable Stiffness Laminates (VSL). Despite offering enough dexterity to be adapted for composite deposition, industrial manipulators are nontrivial to integrate into other applications than those originally envisioned, especially when complex curvilinear cartesian paths are desired. Further improvements in layup control and performance are necessary to induce an accurate tracking of fiber tow courses. The goals of this thesis were to a) reduce variability of layup control, b) eliminate experimental iterative steps associated with programming tow courses and c) enforce a constant laydown speed that aids consolidation quality. To achieve such objectives, a framework entitled LayLa (Laying Laminates) was developed as an offline programming tool that automatically computes the series of continuous robot motions to perform a tow course at a desired laydown speed. Experiments with LayLa were conducted for Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) using a six degrees-of-freedom KUKA manipulator, without actual deposition. From a VSL design algorithm, two fiber tow courses with a reduced turning radius were selected to be performed at a laydown speed of 0.1m/s. The overall results revealed reasonably accurate trajectory tracking of both joint and operating space variables, with errors at the end-effector position around 0.05mm and at the laydown speed of 3.2mm/s, corroborating the use of LayLa to create external commands for composite deposition.