RoboCup is an international initiative that fosters research and education in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence through a variety of competitions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCupSoccer currently includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges.
The Humanoid Soccer League (HSL) was formed through the unification of the Humanoid League (HL) and Standard Platform League (SPL) and will take place for the first time at the RoboCup 2026. HSL hosts games and challenges where teams of humanoid robots play soccer autonomously. The game of soccer serves as an environment for research, development, and education in all areas of autonomous humanoid robots, including hardware development, vision, bipedal locomotion, learning, behavior control, and team coordination. The focus is thereby on human-like abilities of the robots.
Repository with the current rules (currently in progress):
https://github.com/RoboCup-HumanoidSoccerLeague/HSL-Rules/
Discord server:
https://discord.gg/67upw6Nn
A selection of robots is available for purchase through the RoboCup Humanoid Robot Program at a special RoboCup offer:
https://robotprogram.robocup.org
Call for Participation for the RoboCup 2026
The complete call for participation can be found here:
https://lists.robocup.org/archives/list/robocup-nao@lists.robocup.org/thread/RUYYOWTR7OULL4CPMDQP3MUSBYZ2TNFE
Important Dates
Submission system open: January 1st, 2026Pre-application deadline: January 10th, 2026- Submission deadline: January 31st, 2026
- Team review period: February 3rd – 20th, 2026
- Announcement of qualified teams: March 2nd, 2026