# Learning Agile Striker Skills for Humanoid Soccer Robots from Noisy Sensory Input

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.06571 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.06571/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [RoboNaldo: Accurate, Stable and Powerful Humanoid Soccer Shooting via Motion-Guided Curriculum Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.11092/) (2026)
- [Sim-to-Real Transfer for Muscle-Actuated Robots via Generalized Actuator Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09487/) (2026)
- [Skill Composition for Legged Robot Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.14647/) (2026)
- [Locomotion-Grounded Humanoid Soccer: Task-Gated Reinforcement Learning of a Multi-Directional Kicking Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.38852/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Learning fast and robust ball-kicking skills is a critical capability for humanoid soccer robots, yet it remains a challenging problem due to the need for rapid leg swings, postural stability on a single support foot, and robustness under noisy sensory input and external perturbations (e.g., opponents). This paper presents a reinforcement learning (RL)-based system that enables humanoid robots to execute robust continual ball-kicking with adaptability to different ball-goal configurations. The system extends a typical teacher-student training framework -- in which a "teacher" policy is trained with ground truth state information and the "student" learns to mimic it with noisy, imperfect sensing -- by including four training stages: (1) long-distance ball chasing (teacher); (2) directional kicking (teacher); (3) teacher policy distillation (student); and (4) student adaptation and refinement (student). Key design elements -- including tailored reward functions, realistic noise modeling, and online constrained RL for adaptation and refinement -- are critical for closing the sim-to-real gap and sustaining performance under perceptual uncertainty. Extensive evaluations in both simulation and on a real robot demonstrate strong kicking accuracy and goal-scoring success across diverse ball-goal configurations. Ablation studies further highlight the necessity of the constrained RL, noise modeling, and the adaptation stage. This work presents a system for learning robust continual humanoid ball-kicking under imperfect perception, establishing a benchmark task for visuomotor skill learning in humanoid whole-body control.