RoboPatriots: George Mason University 2009 RoboCup Team

The RoboPatriots are a team of three humanoid robots sponsored by George Mason University. Each robot is built on a Kondo KHR-1HV humanoid base and a customized Gumstix Verdex microcontroller. The two attackers share the same behavior, and the goalie’s is different. At present there is minimal communication between the robots, but this may change by the competition. RoboCup 2009 provides an opportunity for the Autonomous Robotics Lab at George Mason University to apply its expertise in evolutionary algorithms to robotics. Our research goals in developing the RoboPatriots have focused on three elements: first, we are interested in the multiagent coordination aspects of the problem. Second, we are simplifying the design of robot motion behaviors by gathering human motion data, then converting this data to the humanoid servos. Third, we are optimizing these motion behaviors in a massively distributed evolutionary computation system attached to a custom humanoid robot simulator of our own devising.