Humanoid Soccer Robots

Sven Behnke

Abstract: Humanoid robots are enjoying increasing popularity as a research tool. As step towards the long-term goal of winning against the FIFA world champion, the RoboCup Federation added in 2002 a league for humanoid robots to its annual soccer competitions. In this paper, the Humanoid League competitions that took place so far are reviewed. The different approaches for the design of robot hardware and the software for perception and behavior control of soccer playing humanoid robots are discussed. The paper concludes with an outlook to the future of the RoboCup Humanoid League.