Everything about Subsumption Architecture totally explained
Subsumption architecture is a reactive robot architecture heavily associated with
behavior-based robotics. The term was introduced by
Rodney Brooks and colleagues in 1986. Subsumption has been widely influential in
autonomous robotics and elsewhere in real-time AI.
Description
A subsumption architecture is a way of decomposing complicated intelligent behaviour into many "simple" behaviour
modules, which are in turn organized into layers. Each layer implements a particular goal of the agent, and higher layers are increasingly more abstract. Each layer's goal subsumes that of the underlying layers, for example the decision to move forward by the eat-food layer takes into account the decision of the lowest obstacle-avoidance layer.
For example, a robot's lowest layer could be "avoid an object", on top of it would be the layer "wander around", which in turn lies under "explore the world". Each of these horizontal layers access all of the sensor data and generate actions for the actuators — the main caveat is that separate tasks can suppress (or overrule) inputs or inhibit outputs. This way, the lowest layers can work like fast-adapting mechanisms (for example
reflexes), while the higher layers work to achieve the overall goal. Feedback is given mainly through the environment.
Attributes of the architecture
The main advantages of the methodology are:
- the modularity,
- the emphasis on iterative development & testing of real-time systems in their target domain, and
- the emphasis on connecting limited, task-specific perception directly to the expressed actions that require it.
These innovations allowed the development of the first robots capable of animal-like speeds.
Main disadvantages of this model are:
the inability to have many layers, since the goals begin interfering with each other,
the difficulty of designing action selection through highly distributed system of inhibition and suppression, and
the consequent rather low flexibility at runtime.Further Information
Get more info on 'Subsumption Architecture'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://subsumption_architecture.totallyexplained.com">Subsumption architecture Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
