The RoboPatriots are a team of three humanoid robots presented by the Department of Computer Science at George Mason University. The RoboPatriots compete in the challenging kid-size humanoid division of RoboCup, an annual international autonomous robotic soccer competition.

These humanoid robots must be able to stay upright and play soccer autonomously, despite severely limited computing resources; a noisy, unpredictable world; and limited sensory input. Beyond the usual challenges in hardware and software system design, sensors, and controls, this scenario also yields research opportunities in many areas of computer science, including motion and path planning; simulation and modeling; localization; and multiple-robot planning and coordination.

The RoboPatriots started competing in the kid-size humanoid division of RoboCup in 2009. As a small team with research interests in Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, our approach has been to develop an inexpensive autonomous system, based on commercially available parts and open source software.